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To the naked eye, it looked as though Sprint Star had beaten the filly. Suraj shared this view, as he waved jubilantly towards the stands. The owners and trainer of Sprint Star landed on the track to complete the "leading-in" formalities. The long delay in the announcement of the result indicated that it was an extremely close finish. The Digital Camera confirmed that Celestial Way had won on the post. The connections of Sprint Star beat a hasty retreat and made way for a smiling Padmanabhan to walk towards this brilliant filly. He gave her a pat of appreciation before shaking the hands of an ecstatic Sampson. The jockey had literally lifted Celestial Way across the wire, and the light-framed filly had confirmed that she is perhaps in the best form of her career. The winning time of a little more than One Minute Twenty Four Seconds was fractionally over the course record.
This victory enabled Sampson to complete his double for the day, as he had already won in the same colours for the Suleiman Attaolahi stable. The heavily bandaged Amazing Queen had scored from start to finish and beaten a group of disinterested rivals. The withdrawal of money-back favourite Crown Vision had allowed this filly to score for the first time in her career.
A sharp thundershower after the day's feature delayed the start of The Nawab M Arshad Ali Khan Memorial Cup. This terms event for three year-olds saw a small field of seven facing the starter. On the basis of his forward run and a third place in The Colts Trial Stakes, Todywalla trained Ciel Indienne selected himself as a frontline contender in this race. Having won only once in his career, Ciel Indienne was receiving weight from most of his rivals. He was opposed by the fancied pair of Sun Dancing and Couleur Rouge. In the very early stages of the race itself, it became apparent that the favourite wasn't going to win today. Despite Sampson's best efforts, he was struggling to keep pace with the others. This was reflected in the final result, which confirmed that Ciel Indienne had been unable to find a place on the board. He was perhaps discomforted by the rumoured bout of coughing that he had encountered a few day's prior to this race. The race itself saw a very interesting duel between Couleur Rouge and Kohinoor Wish. Suraj seized the advantage at the top of the straight and drove Couleur Rouge to a narrow victory. Kohinoor Wish was a gallant loser as he was giving weight to the field today. Laxman Singh can look forward to his ward's exploits on their return to Hyderabad.
Trainer Dominic and jockey PS Chouhan were the other professionals to score a double. They joined hands to land a popular gamble with Nessie. The three year-old had been running some forward races this season and was running in a group that lacked a "star". All the maidens looked equally matched, and it was difficult to predict the winner. Nessie shared the favouritism with One For The Money and La Clique. Chouhan rode her for eventual speed and the filly loved those tactics. She came with giant strides and beat One For The Money near the winning post. The runner-up looks better suited over a slightly longer trip and it shall be worth following him in the future. Now that Nessie has shown her true potential, the astute trainer can place her to win again.
The lower division of the maidens event went to Lokanath's Methodical. The speedy filly proved to be too good for her rivals and won with a measure of comfort. Sreekanth kept looking back in the final furlong to see if there was anyone getting close to them. Padmanabhan's Love Me Tender was the rage in this race. She was backed down to half money favouritism, and those who had dared to support her were disappointed with her efforts. Love Me Tender was sluggish at the start and ran "green" throughout the race. She had to be put under immense pressure to take the second spot. She should definitely benefit from today's experience, but the nice looking filly will have to show a lot of improvement before she wins a race.
PS Chouhan was quick to complete his double with Prithviraj's Captain's Lover. This highly strung filly was led riderless towards the starting gates and was quite nervous while awaiting her turn to get loaded. The trainer's decision to use a hood on her helped her to remain calm in the gates. She jumped comfortably and stayed behind Appolonaire and Mystere till well into the straight. Captain's Lover was shown daylight thereafter and her response was electrifying. She bounded forward and sailed away from a bunch of helpless opponents. Mystere, Brunetta, Hidalgo and Appolonaire finished in a heap while taking the minor placings.
Dominic's Rugged Beauty showed a clean pair of heels to her rivals in The RM Puttanna Memorial Trophy. Apprentice Khurshad Alam did well to take her to the front and the filly kept responding to his urgings till the very end. The slight give in the ground due to an earlier downpour helped this progeny of Burden Of Proof to keep going. Christopher Alford tried his best astride favourite Sweet Surrender to get close to the leader, but that was not to be. The pair of them finished well clear of Mr President and Spark Of Bronte.
The day ended with a runaway victory for Ganapathy's Smart Ways. This horse had tried to win a maiden's event in his last few starts but had been found wanting on those occasions. The stable decided to run him in open class today. He came in at the bottom of the scales and was a firm favourite to win this sprint. A late surge of money on Sharat Kumar's Sweet Performer saw Smart Ways getting dislodged from the leader boards. The odds against this horse expanded from 2/1 to 6/1. However, he wasn't hard pressed to canter away from Its My Party and Sky Rider. The winning margin of a "distance" tells the complete story. This was the second time that the connections of Sweet Performer had come to grief by supporting this filly. She definitely lacks the ability to win at her present mark. In his desperation to win on her, John gave her a very hard ride. Sweet Performer needs to be given a well deserved rest before she is asked to race again.
