The luck factor in horse racing
By Sharan Kumar
brsharan@yahoo.com

Bangalore 
Oct 30, 2004

Lucky people meet their perfect friends, achieve their ambitions, and enjoy a full life. Their success may be or may not be due to them working hard, being amazingly talented or exceptionally intelligent. Instead, they simply appear to have an uncanny ability to make the right moves and be in the right place at the right time and enjoy more than their fair share of lucky breaks. Nothing else explains better the amazing run of success that the team of young horse owners Shailesh Shivaswamy, Prasad Reddy, Satish Gowda, D P Dinesh, Sanjay and K Ramesh have had in the last three years. Most of them are engineers and some of them are class mates too. Baring Shailesh who had racing background, the others had no clue what they were venturing into when they set out to become horse owners. One visit on a Derby day three years ago is what set them to chase what appeared to be only a mirage but three years later, all of them have been proud owners of the Derby-winning horses. Derby has remained an elusive dream for many accomplished teams but their remarkable run is the stuff dreams are made of.

What is more, their Derby winners Brown Sugar and Full Speed which won the 2003 Deccan Derby at Hyderabad and 2004 Poonawalla Mysore Derby respectively was trained by the less heralded Irfan Ghatala and ridden by Mrs. Silva Storai. If anybody had said two years ago that this team would win two Derbies in two years, he would have been dubbed as being out of his senses. Given the fact that Silva Storai, despite being a fine horsewoman, had her limitations and that in a competitive world she was expected to be nudged out, she has defied expectations by riding two Derby winners. There is no doubt that an element of luck has chased them but then nothing comes undeserved. Incidentally, both these Derby winners were bred at the Kunigal Stud Farm.

Full Speed (Silva up), winner of the Poonawalla Mysore Derby 2004 Gr I

Lindsay (David Badel up) winner of  the Fillies Trial Stakes (Grade I) 

Shailesh is the man around whom the team revolves. He is a man blessed with more than gold dust. A castaway horse like Soviet Bay went on to earn more than Rs 15 lakh in stake money. He has been a lucky mascot for trainer Irfan because after his entry, the stable has struck gold. He not only bought more horses but importantly they turned out be sensational horses at prices that most could afford. He also brought more owners into the stable. Prasad Reddy is another who has stood steadfastly by him. Prasad and Shailesh are the common factors in both the Derby winning horses. Both owned Brown Sugar along with friends Satish Gowda and Sanjay. Satish was to be the partner in Full Speed as well but his friend Dinesh was the beneficiary instead. K Ramesh is a totally new entrant. Sanjay is no less lucky though he shifted stables. Luck continued to chase him as his other purchase Lindsay won the richly endowed Gr 1 Fillies Trial Stakes.

Prasad Reddy is easily the most excitable of the lot. He says that horse racing has given him a "high" that nothing else can measure up to it. "Three years ago, I and my friends came to see Snow Dew winning the Derby. Thereafter, I bought a share in Red Mamma which won one race before running into rough weather. We did not plan big but the horses we bought taught us to aim big. Brown Sugar turned out to be a champion though his breaking down after winning the Deccan Derby was a sad sight. Full Speed has placed me on top of the world. Considering how people have invested big money in chase of the Derby, I being part of the two Derby wins will take a long time to sink in. All of us who owned either Brown Sugar or Full Speed or both, have been close friends and are involved in successful business ventures. We have enjoyed immensely the joy of leading in the winner of the most coveted races of the season.’’ 

Brown Sugar (Silva up), winner of the Hindu Deccan Derby 2003 Gr.1

Dinesh was the man who insisted that the name of the horse should start with the letter 'F' as he has his strong belief in numerology and word play. Maker of ornamental fabrications, Dinesh said that to be a Derby winner was something akin to being on top of Everest given the enormous hurdles one has to overcome to reach the Summit.

How much of the successes they owe to luck? "What can one achieve without luck? An ounce of luck is what can determine success and failure. I hope the luck runs. The academic side of the sport like the science of breeding too has given me great intellectual pleasure. I want to be passionately involved with the sport which has taken me to great heights,’’ concluded Prasad Reddy.