Barbadian Christopher Husbands repeated as champion jockey at Canada’s Fort Erie racetrack this week after strong performances in the final weeks of the season.

Steering the 1-5 favourite Milwaukee Bay to victory in Monday’s final day first race, Husbands finished the five-month-long season with 32 wins, two ahead of title rival Melanie Pinto, who went winless on the final day.

The three-year-old filly Milwaukee Bay, trained by Daniel Wills, was held off the pace by Husbands and flew past the front-running 8-1 bet Cloud Runner in the homestretch to win the CAN$14,700 Maiden Claiming event by 4-1/4 lengths. Milwaukee Bay clocked one minute 49.02 seconds for the mile and sixteenth trip.

Although finishing No.2 to Husbands in wins in the 2022 campaign, Pinto, who was leading rider for long periods during the season, earned the title of Outstanding Rider, voted by her peers.

Three other Caribbean riders finished in the top six of the jockeys’ table – Jamaicans MarkLee Buchanan (24) and Kirk Johnson (20th) at fourth and fifth respectively with Barbadian Juan Crawford sixth on 19 wins.

Husbands, 32, won his first Fort Erie title last year and now has four jockeys’ championship titles in Canada, having lifted crowns at Assiniboia Downs in Winnipeg in 2014 and 2016.

As a 16-year-old, Husbands had won the 2006 Trinidad Derby aboard Sara’s Music and he now has 590 career wins in Canadian racing. This 2022 jockeys’ triumph for Husbands makes it 10 times in the last 12 years a Caribbean rider is No.1 at Fort Erie.

Crawford, five-time champion Johnson, and the Barbadians Chris Griffith and Terry Husbands have also been Fort Erie champions in the past dozen years.