Derby
weekend in Pune began on Saturday with a card of 8 races framed for the
day. The first race was won by Incroyable, from the stables of Narendra
Lagad, adding another longer odds winner taking his tally to 28 winners,
as he heads to wear the trainers championship crown for the season.
Incroyable took the running as the gates opened and kept a lead of 10 to
15 lenghts from the rest of the field who were completely used up in
catching up with incroyable in the straight. That gave him a start to
finish victory.
Naseebdar won the second race from a very
fast-finishing, well-backed See The Truth by half-length with Sharapova
finishing third and the rest of the field taking it easy behind.
Recollection was the first favourite winner of the day from the poorly
ridden Star Legend who looked to be not getting enough support in the
saddle from P.Belose to pass the front-running Recollection. Simply
Perfect is the one to note in this race for the future; Vikram Jodha
looked least happy in finishing even in the third place. The well-bred
Really Romantic found herself again playing bridesmaid to Nnectar Jewel
who finally caught up in the last 150 metres with Really Romantic who
looked as if would win comfortably.
The feature event of the day caused a lot of
chaos with the punters as the price on Star of China went up and the
second favourite Avec Plasir declared to be in-season by the punters in
the know. The odds board reflected the peoples mood as the Hurricane
came into serious money and he justified the faith put on him by winning
in great authority and style, comfortably beating Avec Plasir to second
and Royal Flash who found himself in third place with the favourite Star
of China ending a poor 5th at the post.
The sixth race was won by Phoenix Rising with
great ease start to finish, so much so that C Rajendra eased up this
very well bred daughter of Chloes Delight and sister to the very well
performed Venus Arising 5 lengths before the post. But he little
realised that Spirited Guy was right up his quarters and would have even
beaten him, had he not been hampered 250 metres from the post.
The well-backed Luvata won the seventh race
from the Right Man who was also fancied with S Bhadke in the saddle.
Shaktiman ran a poor third with Te Quiero finishing fourth. The last
race was won by precision in start to finish with a change of jockey,
now ridden by Nirmal Jodha. The connections of the second placed Supreme
Attraction were not happy seeing C Alford letting Precision go, and then
covering all the ground in the straight. The third placed Roman Ruler
can be safely backed next time if B Prakash or Y.S. Srinath is in the
saddle.
