Adolfito (Pesi Shroff up) set the pace, while Srinath preferred to settle River God in mid bunch. When the race was taking a serious turn, Srinath brought the six-year old on the outside and River God responded with alacrity as he swept past Adolfito with his inimitable flourish. Meanwhile, Suraj had Asssessed at full throttle, coming up with amazing strides but it proved in vain as River God staved off the fierce late challenge. The Lokanath trainee lives to fight another day. Having cornered the days glory with a treble, Srinath said, "He is a great horse. There has not been any horse that has won three graded races in a single summer season. Though Suraj seemed to celebrate before the verdict was announced, I was confident that I had held on. A mile would be a more suitable distance for River God."
The Dhariwal camp had something to cheer about at the end of the day. Two of their wards, Super Model and Conqueress were impressive winners in the opening and concluding events. The former had the better of the Ganapathy-trained favourite Noble Possession, while the latter was piloted by Suraj Narredu on a successful start-to-finish mission to keep favourite Nominate, from Darius Byramji’s yard, at bay quite comfortably.
The Zadmal Singh-trained Diffidence asserted his supremacy with a convincing victory and will be a
major contender in his next run. Netto-schooled Thunder On seemed to find himself in a spot as jockey Sequeria struggled to get him out of the jam but finished an impressive second.
Deshmukh schooled Kaiser coming after a setback, provided Srinath his third success of the day, winning the Rajah S.R.K. Ranga Row Memorial Cup. Path Of Honour finished second, while Amazing Ability was a notable third and will be a strong contender in his own age group.
The Mohan Valavi trained Demanding scored a surprise victory in the second division of the Maroof Farah Memorial Plate. Jockey Shoban Babu had the Valavi trainee in the front and stayed there. Lusitania ran a good race to finish second ahead of favourite Devil’s Own, just edging out Irfan Ghatala trainee Red Mamma to fourth place. The notable runner in this race was Red Mamma, which was running after a long lay off and had to over come interference from the Suraj piloted
Iron Butterfly.
Adopting different tactics, rank out sider, Crystal Beauty was a surprise package in the first division of the Maroof Farah Memorial Plate. Darashah trained Luffness, who looked the only challenger to the winner, finished second
ahead of the fancied Baracudda.
Frenchman, David Badel continued to face the wrath of the officials as he was stood down for two race days. Badel was suspended form June 30 to July 3 as the stipendary stewards felt that the Frenchman did not do justice to his mount, Devil’s Own and penalised him for injudicious riding.
