 This horse race in the English-speaking Caribbean, the Moutier-Miles invitation hall will see and increase the purse amount moving from US$125,000 to US$150,000. That's approximately US$23 million. Scheduled to have its second stage in later this year on the 2nd of December, the Great One event will be contested over a mile and is restricted to horses three years old and upward. Something new has happened and as a part of the dream of creating the richest race in the Caribbean, this year we're proud to announce once again that we have six horses that have been nominated that have not been domiciled in Jamaica since January 1. Solomon Sharp is the chairman of Supreme Avengers Racing and Entertainment Limited, the promoters of horse racing in Jamaica. He now joins us to discuss among other things the number of overseas-based horses nominated for the event as well as the notable increase in the purse amount. Welcome to our new studio. Thank you. Happy to have you in the studio and of course to discuss this. Let's start by talking about the money. So last year when we announced the race, it was a three-year sponsorship deal from the Moutier family and we always knew it was going to be a progressive sponsorship. I'm not really supposed to say this but they were so excited, you know, there were talks like let's double the money next year and we said no it has to be a natural progression. Lance and I would have been on our own sporting events for years and when you take that big of a leap in the next year you create a big problem for yourself. But 150,000 US is nothing to scuff at. The gentlemen, the horsemen, the stakeholders are very excited about the increase. I got a call earlier today not just for the increase in purse in this race but what would the undercard look like. Right now which is subject to change under projections, there's a sprint race. So last year we barely got 16 runners and with no overseas entrance. So you now have six overseas entrants and you now have a list that goes down to 28. And when you look at a horse like Mahogany who based on what I'm hearing in the morning he's catching birds, he's now at number 25 so he's nowhere near the first 16. But up to recently Mahogany was the top rated horse in Jamaica, up to a few months ago. Top rated but he has not been racing regularly so he doesn't have the purse to get in. So we provisionally added a sprint race and I told the connections that come this morning I said yes, we'd like to have that sprint race and I'd like to have it for X, Y and Z purse. But some of these things are contingent and sponsorship etc. But we've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes and I'm happy to be here today to discuss some positive stuff. The last time we were here we weren't necessarily in a positive mood. But one of the things that I was always positive about was the work that we had put in to bring races like this and there are some other stuff that has happened as a result of us sticking to the task. Right and the multi mile is one that I enjoy a lot because I was saying on the top of the show apart from top class horse racing there's a lot of glitz glamour, many other entertainment you know different activities so even if you're not a lover of horse racing you still attend the multi mile because there's something for everybody. How about preparations coming along for that last time I was so impressed with the decor, the red carpet, everything. Expect nothing less. We're going to up the ante a little bit more this year. It went absolutely fabulous last year and this year the theme is for kings and queens. Okay. So thanks for telling me in advance. So I don't know who know I might turn up as the king of the dance hall you know. Yeah. I like that. Here there's some African kings flying in and you know there's a bunch of crazy stuff that based on what I'm hearing. But the plans are well advanced. We will have an infield execution again. We will bring that element of pump and pageantry. We still have a ways to go to get to Royal Ascot. I happen to go there this year on a fat finding mission and I think that by next year we are going to rival the likes of these destinations and in our own way because they are steeped in the history of how much 100 years this is the second year of this race. Again just like how we under my stewardship in 2019 I said you know I'm going to operate this race track like how you train a horse you start at you know the track and you go through the phases and we've been going through the phases and despite you know you know some people getting excited here and there things are going in an absolutely positive direction. We looking at the fresh back of last year with the baby the Harvey coming with the later on the insider board excessive force for Philip Fianna Odi with a victory there hasn't done all that well since winning the inaugural Mouta in my last year and I suspect he may have trouble getting into this year's list. He's on the outside looking in. He has a new trainer now Sabrati little sub and he says that he's going to qualify him. I'm not sure how he's going to do it but if you remember last year his route to the Mouta in Mali won the poor sprint and then went to the Mouta in Mali and so we still have the Jamaica Cup we still have the new limited Philip Fianna goalcups coming up next week so I'm not sure what the connections but there's a lot of banter on the back stretch on who's going to position themselves how and how they're going to get in and how they want to get in before and what their preparation needs to be and the preparation etc so there's a lot of bit of a lot of excitement I should say and behind the scenes on the back stretch. Well last time I believe you had told us that there'll be lights for the Mouta in Mali. Yes so what's going on with that? Ideally we wanted lights for the Mouta in Mali but came on as part of the whole property so we have a lot to work to do we have a lot more to expand. We do operate a lease so before we do certain things we have to get the explicit or supposed to get the explicit approval of our landlord because there are certain things that a contract in which we got the lease that must be met with potentially we've lived up to a lot more than was in the initial lease but the initial lease wouldn't have taken into consideration COVID initial lease wouldn't have taken into consideration that we needed to fix the water on the property etc so there are some things that we had to move from and then you know we have to sit with our landlord and hopefully they'll come up with some spend as well in the whole in the whole in the fact of this because the place was wired you know fully gone away for years and whilst we have seen a benefit of some part of the solar plant we're not necessarily seeing all the benefits of the solar plant just yet so I wanted to use the benefits of that money to invest in the lights but that's still on the pipeline and came on as part of Israeli trending I have quick service restaurants calling me now wanting to know if they can get on property and I just come from a tourist board event all day dealing about destination destination marketing so if you hear me saying hashtag destination came on as park as part of the plan going forward that was always part of my plan I put that in a master plan that I presented to the board in 2020 I said these things would happen by 2025 we're now in 2023 and we have we have executed at least 85% of that so the next thing was how do we manage a full entertainment part of the product because sports is entertainment yes but then this is further entertainment with a pump and pageant for the hospitality element of it and once you've come to came on as park whether you're a fan of house racing or not you leave there with a with a very positive vibe you know and it's even better if you if you win a dollar can you tell me quickly about the Mute family's involvement in this project because the Mute family are Trinidad and Tobago originally aren't they yeah but they've been originally a part of of Supreme Ventures and Mr. Mute who the race was named after he was a original owner of Bruce on the loose so he's an avid who had run the classics in Jamaica before transferring as a three-year-old to TNT and to win the classic there multiple horse of the year and track record holder at Bruce at Santa Rosa Park he was buried in the middle of the track at Santa Rosa Park so you know they have been involved and not just in Jamaica and Trinidad but in North America he had horses and on Gulf Stream Park and some at Woodbine so they have been very involved and they have been begging us from 2020 to do this race COVID came change a whole landscape of the calendar and last year we were able to slot it in found the right with the positioning of these races you'll have to plan in advance so within the next few weeks we're already submitting next year's calendar to the Jamaica race in commission he said these are the days that we want to race and these are the prospective dates and especially the important races the grade ones etc have to be properly illustrated yeah I got a call last year could have been in October or November from someone with horses racing at Woodbine in Canada wanting to connect with Supreme Ventures and the Jamaica Racing Commission re-entering a horse for the Mute mile which was going to come up in about five or six weeks yes having said that can you tell us anything more about the overseas entries already committed to the race are they are any of them from Canada or is it more likely to be Florida racing yeah which is next door to this is North American horses well sorry American horses not not Canadian American horses there's a there's some protocol that has to be met and for the Canadian horses they would potentially have to come through a quarantine in South Florida and then head over so horse racing in a peculiar sport so when you would want to ship and then if there's a particular race going on during your season you might not want to miss that race and you might want to hop over ironically the Mute family had a horse that we approached them to to run with connections with Stafford Joseph's and he didn't want to give up the horse because he said that there are some stakes races that he wanted to win and it's easier to not ship and run for $150,000 than to ship and then have to prepare again to run for 150 because when you do ship you're in quarantine two weeks in the States and then you come and you're in quarantine ten days here minimum we would love I've been to Australia I've spoken to the lady who arranges for the shippers so for the Melbourne Cup it's a good 65% of the card maybe that comes from outside of Australia some of them are probably Australian red horses that went further feel that ships back in you know to win this prestigious cup and I'm on this day and you have like the breeders cup but most of these horses are still coming from within the same jurisdiction the horses from that come from outside of the restriction depending on where they're coming from so the vet board has done a fantastic job in Jamaica at managing all diseases that are transmissible and because of their very strict quarantine deadlines you know they've kept us safe but it is not the easiest route to come if you're not well advanced or committed long in advance because you want to come you want to get acclimatized you want to feel this racetrack not all racetracks are created equal we just had a consultant come down and did examinations of the tracks sent samples overseas and he gave us a grade one rating okay and said that he's associated with tracks like Delmar I said hey I wish you guys would ship me some of this stuff so we have a fantastic surface great racetrack but some of these animals are probably used to attract that has more clay we have a lot less clay we use dune sand and you know so sometimes you'll see the shippers happening like in breeders cup and overwhelming favorite and then you maybe have rain on the day or just some other conditions you know a little heat maybe a little too cold whatever and the horses don't run so I know like like for Goldstream they now have a tapeter track which is a an artificial surface which would be a huge adjustment for those horses if horses are coming from Goldstream Park to race at Cayman as part right so even even at Goldstream Park you're having specialists on the dirt specialists on the tapeter and specialists on the grass so when there's a scratch off of the grass to the tapeter a lot of trainers they said that they're not running on the tapeter if they're not on the grass they're gonna scratch so again it's the peculiarity with our sport and the phonon games and you know just like I see you guys in football jerseys you know on a Friday yeah what team you play home versus away you know what stadium you're going to visit a champions league is a Carabao Cup etc and you set your your team and your strategy accordingly but I would have to say though from a fan perspective it is tremendously exciting for Jamaican racing fans the thought of having overseas entries now for a big event because for decades we haven't had that in Jamaica and so many yeah and so many there was a time in the 80s and 90s when horses from Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados would come to the Superstakes and race in the Superstakes and even winning so the advent of overseas entries coming to a big event in Jamaica now is something that the local fans haven't experienced in a long time so we are a product as constantly evolving we would have learned a lot today at the Jamaica Tourist Board destination so let's go back to it destination so the Breeders Cup is a destination event, Raleigh Scott is a destination event and the Mutea Mile and Cayman's Park, Cayman's Park is a fantastic destination I think it's the greatest place on earth but the Mutea Mile will definitely be a proper fixture in the tourism area horse racing area and just a all-time great place to be at come December 2nd if you think this year is good I expect next year to be better yeah when we were speaking to people at Graham Motion at Belmont he expressed that Jamaica Inn is one of his all-time favorites to come to you know it's one hour from Jamaica Inn to Cayman's Park and if you were going to stay in Manhattan it could take you a one-hour drive to get to Belmont Park so he said hmm interesting so I think we got him at a funny time but we're gonna go on the road immediately after this year is running and start the recruitment because we want to get some more commitments from February March next year and turn it into a bigger event yeah and this is going to be a real as I said a real tourism event if you think of our near nearest neighbors and where we get more the most tourist customer arrivals from in North America December 2nd is going to be blister and call in Canada and it's going to be equally calling in some parts of of America so what better place to be at you know on December 2nd team the team and I were discussing said you know how do we do locally curated events because we're not just working for the horse racing community but the external community so might have a street dance etc yeah we've got to wrap the segment now but just quickly this this race day is going to be live on Fox Sports Fox 5 yeah which is a first for Jamaican racing I think yeah so we definitely know it's going to be on Fox Sports what Fox does with their scheduling for the bell month they took the bell month away from NBC this year and so they're live on Fox Sports during the day we get in there we get in there we get in there we get in there we get in there we have to save the best for last yeah so they usually start on Fox Sports and then when the prime time event happens which is a cigar mile to be followed by the motor a mile they would switch over to Fox and it's Fox 5 in New York we've been dealing with Naira so we cannot say Fox 5 but it may be broadcast throughout the entire platform of Fox it's a big coup for us we've been working on that from since March yes we were told verbally that we would have it in May but you know when when you're little boys there and trying to meet the team you don't have to wait so we got the call and we made the announcement and we're very happy about that but we're not going to forget Sportsmax I had to come here personally today to share the information with you and so we have our Caribbean people and we're we told you that we had a big plan to get this product out to expose Jamaicans to expose Jamaican horse racing professionals that do very well on an North American circuit and you know this are as well for Jamaica and for horse racing. Yeah we're going to leave it here we're out of time for this segment Mariah we were saying at the top of the show that in the post race interview we will likely get Mariah to mount a horse and do the interview with the winning rider as we see on NBC and ESPN. We have a horse in studio. Yes so she's getting accustomed to the feel of the horses and let's see if that works out for the second of and the horse looks enthusiastic. I'm going to give you a secret. He likes me. Yeah he looks ready for Mariah to mount. Let's walk with some candy in your pocket. Yeah. Go to the horse do your hand like this put the candy in your hand he'll eat it he's going to smell it first. Yeah. Don't move your hand don't be scared it won't bite you and then he's going to have the candy and then you can do anything you want to with that horse after. Oh wow great time.