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For Irfan Ghatala, Friday's result was like a "Dream Come True". After a couple of years of training horses in Madras, the young man arrived at the Bangalore Turf Club in 1994. He started his long journey by training a handful of older horses belonging to his family and friends. Most of them were patched up and unsound. He teamed up with Silva Storai, and made slow and steady progress thereafter. The results began to speak for themselves and the string began to increase. The lack of quality horseflesh did not disappoint him, as he was determined to make a success of his career. Silva understood the horses and gave him invaluable feedback. There were occasions when she lost in close finishes, but Irfan refused to blame her for that. The pair of them made smooth and steady progress in their respective careers.
It took a while before he achieved Classic success. Two modest acquisitions brought him a lot of glory. Full Speed won the Bangalore 2000 Guineas, while Brown Sugar lifted the Hyderabad and Mysore Derbies. Incidentally, the jockey on all three occasions was Silva Storai. Her critics were silenced. They stopped urging Irfan to use a stronger jockey on his horses. Irfan's status kept improving with time, and his name began to figure amongst the top ten trainers at the end of most seasonal tallies.
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The young and enthusiastic Suraj Narredu was seen riding at the top of his form this Winter. The last six months have seen him achieve some historic milestones. He won the 1000 and 2000 Guineas at this centre, prior to landing the Derbies at Hyderabad and New Delhi. Thereafter, he received accolades for his power-packed finish astride Becket in The Indian Turf Invitation Cup at Mumbai. He capped it all by his performance on foreign soil. While representing India at an Invitation Weekend of racing at Mauritius, and riding amongst the finest riding talent in the world, Suraj claimed the Champion Jockey's title in the Rising Star's category. He was seen proudly waving the Indian Tricolour at the presentation ceremonies.
Suraj has been freelancing this season. He is a keen student of the game. He spends long hours in front of his TV, studying replays of previous races. He has a rare ability of working out a strategy prior to executing it on the track. His judgment of pace and a power-packed finish single him out from the others. The champion jockey has ridden successfully for most of the top stables at Bangalore. He is likely to retain his stranglehold on the Jockey's Championship for a long period of time. Suraj is on the threshold of completing the fastest 1,000 winners in the history of Indian racing. With less than 50 required to reach that milestone, he is hopeful of doing so in 2010.
Suraj spoke to us at the end of the season. He was grateful to all the trainers who have supported him and given him an opportunity to display his skills. He agreed that he is blessed to get a chance to ride the best horses in a race. We asked him about his opinion about the three year-olds that he has ridden and ridden against in the past six months. Suraj felt that there were many talented juveniles who were yet to appear on the race track. He had worked some of them and observed the others in their morning trials. He stated unhesitatingly that according to him, on all known form, the best colt and filly belong to the Prithviraj stable. Suraj feels that Foreign Exchange and Eagle Claws will be prominent in the Summer Classics.
