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Let us begin our series with the bay colt Track Lightning. He lies at number seven on the ‘super list’ but on his day could very well have been number one. The year was 1980, a time when the late Major P K Mehra was basking in the glory of his wonder stallion – Grey Gaston. After the immense success of Manitou (Grey Gaston – Dusty Marta) one year earlier, it was the turn of Track Lightning to take over the baton. Sired by the mighty stallion, Track Lightning was out of the mare Traxana, a full brother to the crack sprinter Track Flame.
Like many of Byramji’s runners, the colt started inauspiciously and inconspicuously when he finished a poor third to Apres Moi in his maiden start at Madras. At that time he was called Birthday Boy. It was also the period during which the combination of Rashid Byramji and his trusted knight in pigskin Vasant Shinde were considered invincible in the classics. The textile tycoons Khataus purchased the vastly improved colt from his breeder prior to the running of the Bangalore Colts Trial Stakes in the summer of 1980. On that Sunday, the late jockey Waheed rode a treble but the Khataus picked up the big ’un without the colt raising a sweat. The winning owners comprised Mr and Mrs S C Khatau, C M Khatau and K C Khatau. Under the able guidance of their trainer, the Khataus had obviously made the right choice.
The colt was installed as the 6/4 joint favourite with stablemate Right Ahead but had no difficulty in annexing this mile classic. Subsequently, the Khataus were to retain the temperamental but brilliant Sandy Barclay and he rode the colt in the Bangalore Derby the next month. It may be redundant to mention here that it was the summer Derby (run over 2000 metres) as the piece de resistance during the winter months was the Arc De Triomphe and not the Derby in that era. The Bangalore Derby during winter (as we know it today) came into being at a much later stage.
Barclay rode a flawless race astride the 5/1 shot to finish well ahead of Christoffe and the on-money favourite Attaturk from MAM’s yard. The Khataus picked up the Arc with Sovereign Crown while on the 1st of February 1981, Track Lightning bagged the Indian Derby in a dramatic finish from Christoffe, Happy Landing and Furioso. Though heads separated the top four, it was not a strictly speaking a blanket finish as Track Lightning had drifted to the outer rails. Critics who declared that his inexperience over a mile-and-half had been exposed had to eat their words as the Byramji ward came back with a vengeance to annex the Invitation Cup at Madras in a canter and that too in record time.
Like many of Byramji’s wards, Track Lightning continued to improve even late in his career. As a five-year-old, he won the prestigious Maharaja’s Cup in Bangalore while shouldering a crushing 65 kg. On that occasion, he was piloted by heavy-weight Buster Parnell and was available at 4/1, the favourite being stablemate Almanac. In his last two starts, he succumbed to the latter but on both occasions, he was conceding considerable weight to his stable mate. In the Governor’s Cup in Bangalore, Almanac (Robin Corner up) was receiving 7 kg from Track Lightning who came with a late run to finish three parts of a length behind. In the Nizam’s Gold Cup in Hyderabad, Robin Corner rode a near identical race on Almanac to get the better of his stablemate. But by then Track Lightning had already made his way into the annals of Indian turf history.
