Pink Lloyd registers record fourth straight Grade 3 Jacques Cartier Stakes win

TORONTO — Another year, another Jacques Cartier Stakes win for Pink Lloyd.

The eight-year-old gelding captured the Grade 3, $125,000 race for a record fourth straight year Thursday night at Woodbine Racetrack. Pink Lloyd secured trainer Robert Tiller a second marquee victory in as many weeks.

Tiller recorded his 2,000th career victory last week, also at Woodbine.

Pink Lloyd, the 1/5 race favourite, won his ’20 season debut in 1:09.61. He topped the field that was reduced to four horses after Dixie’s Gamble was scratched.

Pink Lloyd, with Rafael Hernandez aboard, finished two lengths ahead of Malibu Secret. Not So Quiet was third while Circle of Friends took fourth.

Pink Lloyd — Canada’s horse of the year in 2017 — and Essence Hit Man (2011-13) were the only horses to claim the six-furlong Jacques Cartier three consecutive times. The win was Pink Lloyd’s 23rd in 28 career starts and it marked his 20th career stakes victory.

Last year, the Ontario-bred chestnut won all six of his starts. He was voted Canada’s top male sprinter for a third straight year and claimed a second Sovereign as champion older male main track runner.

Hernandez rode Pink Lloyd to victory in the 2018 Jacques Cartier while his regular rider — the recently retired Eurico Rose da Silva — served a racing suspension. That year, Pink Lloyd posted a track-record time of 1:08.05 on Woodbine’s Tapeta track.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 25, 2020.

The Canadian Press