Tronto, ON – Champion jockey Patrick Husbands became the first Woodbine rider to reach 100 wins on the 2009 campaign, pairing with Preakness Laugher to take Friday afternoon’s first race.
A six-time Sovereign Award winner as Canada’s top rider, Husbands partnered the 3-5 favourite to a 2 ¼-length score for trainer Mark Casse and owner-breeder David Di Pietro in the five-year-old gelded son of Distorted Humor’s career bow, a six-furlong Polytrack race.
Husbands, who also has 14 stakes wins in 2009, 13 at Woodbine and one at Santa Anita, won his second consecutive Sovereign Award in 2008, courtesy of a colony-best 166 victories at the Toronto oval. His other Sovereign wins came in 1999-2002.
The youngest rider to ever win the prestigious Cockspur Cup in his native Barbados, Husbands has five Woodbine riding titles (1999, 2000, 2002, 2007 and 2008) to his name.
His greatest riding achievement in Canada came when he piloted Gus Schickedanz’s Wando, trained by Mike Keogh, to Triple Crown glory in 2003.
Husbands, who was awarded the Barbados Service Star (BSS) in the country’s Independence Day honours’ list in 2004, resides in Brampton, Ontario.
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