Last Friday evening the Malta Racing Club honoured yet another driver as Tony Demanuele was declared June’s driver of the month.
Those who have been following my articles, know by now that since the beginning of the year, the Malta Racing Club together with the Horse Owners Drivers and Jockeys Association initiated a new monthly award for that driver that had an exceptional good performance. This award gives an opportunity for each and every driver even if he does not have as many horses as others and thus has no chance to feature in the championship classification.
Nominations for this award are made by several people which also include the track’s journalists.
Tony Demanuele was chosen for June after he won two championships with Zilver Boko (Premier Category Sette Giugno Cup) and Icare de Jemma (Copper Category Prix de Caen).
44-year old Demanuele has been holding a licence since 1990 and since then has won a hundred races the last of which was exactly on Friday. Apart from local victories, Tony has also won twice in Russia and in 2010 was part of the 5 driver team that won the Mediterranean Horse Racing Championship as well as an MOC Gold Award.
With 12 victories this season he has set a new personal record for himself as this is the greatest number of races he has won in one season. He is currently in 6th place in the champion driver classification and his best placing so far has been 5th place in the 2010 season.
This month’s award was sponsored by Finish Line and the presentation was effected by its representative in Malta Matthew Sammut.
Lorraine Cunningham