Royal Liberator who
had blotted his copybook with a listless performance in the Nanoli
Juvenile Million during the winter season, bounced back into classic
contention with an effortless win in his lead up race to the Colts
Trial Stakes to be held next month.
The Green
Forest-Figure Libre three-year old gelding hacked the opposition in
the Mayor's Cup (Div I) on Saturday in a manner which effectively
sealed the fate of Imperial Legend as a classic material. No other
horse in recent times been as much hyped up as Imperial Legend.
Trainer Arjun
Mangalorkar always rated Royal Liberator highly. True to
expectations, Royal Liberator had won his first outing over seven
furlongs in a season's best timing of one minute 26.79 seconds.
Subsequently, he ran miserably in the Nanoli Million which put a
question mark about his consistency. The trainer reckoned that the
short gap between the debut run and the Million was the reason for
the gelding's poor run and as such, he skipped the more lucrative
Knock-Out Million to give more time to the Green Forest progeny to
recover from the ill-effects of a hard race. Royal Liberator style
of winning augurs well for his chances in the classics. These are
early days and as such, one has to wait and see how horses like
Royal Gladiator shape in their lead up races.
Sadly, Loknath Gowda
who had put great hopes on Imperial Legend was stunned by the
turn of events. The big made Placerville progeny's debut win in
winter no doubt was impressive but he ran below expectations in the
Poonawalla Multi-Million at Mumbai. The poor run was attributed to
lack of experience. The trainer had rejected a lucrative offer to
sell the horse to Western India based Imtiaz Sait. In hindsight, he
would have been better off selling it. If only one was gifted with
this sight, everyone could become a millionaire in racing.
Royal Liberator who
had blazed the track, went into the race as an on-money favourite,
with Imperial Legend next in demand. Brora did the job of a
pace-maker, with Imperial Legend and Royal Liberator racing in close
attendance in about the fifth or sixth position. Imperial Legend
quickly moved into a striking position approaching the final bend
and in fact, headed the field for a brief while but was done in by
the finishing burst of Royal Liberator. When asked for an effort by
jockey Srinath, the Green Forest progeny quickened in the manner of
a top class horse and stretched away from the field to win by a
widening margin of over eight lengths, in a good timing of one
minute 27.93 seconds which was better than that clocked by a more
seasoned Almost Heaven in the higher class on the same day. Amber
Dancer pipped Imperial Legend for the runner-up spot.
Trainer Lokanth was at
a loss to explain the poor run of Imperial Legend. ``I am baffled.
The jockey said the horse got keener because of the blinkers but
even then the performance is too poor for comfort.''
In the lower division
of the Mayor's Cup, Star Beauty came from behind to overhaul the
front-running Step In Time to win quite convincingly. The win
enabled champion jockey B Prakash to record a double for the day.
The well bred Steinbeck filly Star Beauty may find the classics too
tough for comfort. Meri Ladlaa who came in for betting on the basis
of his track work, ran like a dud and finished a poor fourth. Atomic
Fusion and Step In Time finished second and third against
expectations.