Cojuangco Cup starts Triple Crown

Local racing’s most coveted championship series officially flags off this Sunday at the Santa Ana Park as the Philippine Racing Commission (Philracom) starts the 2001 Triple Crown with the staging of the "Cojuangco Cup," the first leg of the triple race classic among the best three-year-old gallopers in the land.

"The Philracom is truly proud to once again spearhead the 24th running of this prized horse racing tradition, a showcase of the huge strides achieved by the local horse breeding industry in producing race horses of championship caliber," according to Philracom chairman Benedicto Katigbak.

A full-house cast of 14 starters will contest the first leg of this year’s Triple Crown, which is traditionally held in honor of the Philracom’s founding chairman and the original proponent of the local Triple Crown series -- former Ambassador and renowned horseman Eduardo M. Cojuangco, Jr., who has been invited to personally grace the affair.

Heading the hunt for the P1.6-million Cojuangco Cup is early Triple Crown favorite Silver Story, last year’s undisputed two-year-old champion who plans to replicate the early feats of former Juvenile and Triple Crown champions Strong Material (1996) and Real Top (1999).