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| Kolkata: The curtain came down on the Calcutta winter season on Friday
with speedy Piato leaving the field cold after a couple of failures. It could be that the strong handling of Imran Chisty made the difference. Chisty completed a treble on the final afternoon, his other winners being One Man Army and Flirting Eye. Piato stopped the clock at 1min 4.67 sec which was marginally outside the record set by Char Bahar a decade ago. Glory of North, who was better placed at weights than the second favourite Arnatta, finished a faraway second. Champion jockey Christopher Alford completed 50 winners for the season with Impressive Wish in the Desert Fire Cup. Considering that this was a truncated season, his performance was pretty creditable. The victory also completed a hattrick for the Arti Doctor-trained colt. The surprise runner-up was the Rutherford Alford-trained Solid Success. Rutherford’s Knights Falcon ran a great race to win the upper division of the Shiseido handicap. Bach was the rage of the ring while the Falcon was available at 6/1. Lying in the rear for a major part of the race, the Falcon flew in the final furlong to sweep past runaway Bach and the fast finishing Moment of Love. More races are in store for this three-year-old. Trainer Vijay Singh drew a blank on the final afternoon but had done enough to ensure that he records the highest number of winners this season– 44 in all. Top-weight apprentice Mahesh registered a dozen winners to be crowned the most successful apprentice. Sephora was very well handled by Mahesh to land the Bright Law Handicap. The favourite Art of War was a poor fourth while Mystic Force issued a late challenge. Lying a handy third till the distance post, Sephora showed great acceleration to sail past the front-runner. The afternoon commenced with Chisty showing superb form. His mount One Man Army got the better of Flaming Comet in the opening event while Flirting Eye finished powerfully to keep at bay Christopher Alford and Secret Idea. The most disappointing loser of the day was Algorithms in the Huzoor-E-Alaa Handicap. Hot favourite Devilish was troubled by Astro Boy all along and the latter showed that he is no mean sprinter as he edged ahead. Secret Move always looked menacing and finished a good second. Algorithms struggled to finish third. The Telegraph and Times of India finished 1-2 in the Tipsters Tally competition. Stay tuned to this column for the season’s summary which will follow in a couple of days. |
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