Venga Boys Play Victory March |
| In a magnificent show of ‘southern’ strength, the boys from Bangalore (Palazzio’s Sun, Aboline and of course Becket) left their indelible mark at the Mahaluxmi racecourse over the Invitation Cup weekend. The illustrious trio won the three major races – The Sprinters Cup, The Super Mile Cup and The Invitation Cup. Add to that the aged Aurelian’s triumph in the Multi-Million and the notable display by Conceptual in the Stayers Cup – and what have you but ‘southern command at its best’. To top it all, Aboline (Burden Of Proof-Super Fan) is bred at the Kunigal Stud farm, one of the finest of its kind near Bangalore. Two of the three runners (Palazzio’s Sun and Becket) are trained by Padmanabhan , whose reputation of churning out winners in graded races has been further enhanced by this superlative show. Aboline, an Arjun Mangalorkar ward, was never quite himself at Calcutta. After his dismal showing in the Calcutta Derby, he has proved beyond doubt that he is best up to a mile. That Christopher Alford could ride him in check instead of leading from the front as he is wont to do, suggests that more laurels are in store for him. Palazzio’s Sun ran a great second to Oasis Star (arguably the best sprinter that this country has produced) in Hyderabad, before being ‘judiciously prepared’ at Bangalore with this race in mind over the past several months. These very words were penned by the trainer himself in a leading nationwide daily. An inside draw and a top rider from the UK (Martin Dwyer) no doubt helped his cause. As for Becket, the stunningly handsome dark bay, raced in the Indian Derby barely 10 days after pocketing the Bangalore Derby. Thus, his narrow defeat at the hands of Jacqueline after travelling to a new centre had to be taken with a pinch of salt. With the subsequent rest and systematic preparation over a month, not to mention a change of riding tactics, he was a different proposition altogether. Had the abundantly talented Suraj Narredu not faced traffic problems at the top of the straight, the verdict would have been surely greater. When the living legend of Invitation Cup successes – Rashid Byramji, shifted base from Bombay to Bangalore in the eighties, he had always maintained that Bangalore-based thoroughbreds were in no way inferior to western India’s stable strength. His words have been further vindicated by this brilliant showing of runners from the south. |
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