Everything went right for punters
By Aalibaba (indiathoroughbreds@hotmail.com)Kolkata
April 7, 2006
Lady luck continued to smile on punters, and layers of odds, obviously, rued. Four favourites triumphed on Friday, after the five public fancies had done the damage to their cause two days earlier. The fact that all the four had attracted solid support in the betting ring, there was precisely little bookmakers could do than to crib.
Things started rolling the punters’ way from the second race onwards. It was trainer H.S.Bath’s half-money favourite, River Rafter, who set the day’s trend by winning the Keewattin Handicap over 1,400 metres. The topweight won despite burst blood vessels to present the leading jockey C.Alford his first of the two winners on the day.
It was not only River Rafter who bled because of the steamy April-heat and the dusty track. Three more horses – Hello Brother, Star Special and Serengitti – also suffered the same fate in their respective events after they came close to winning. It wasn’t bookmakers day after all.
Alford continued to be in luck as it was his stablemate, Star Special, who also bled when he was going strong upfront in the Zuyder Zee Plate, a handicap race for three-year-olds. Alford’s Pottermania looked to be in distress while in chase of Star Special but in the final furlong the equation changed in favour of the 7-10 public-choice.
Incidentally, Alford is already sitting pretty at the top of the championship table with a eight-point lead and the brace of winners has put him in an invincible position against Imran Chisty who could just about manage a solitary winner on the day.
In the Pompano Handicap, Hello Brother appeared to be in total command when in the lead. However, the unexpected (bleeding) happened in the final furlong. The nine-year-old failed to stop a late-finishing even-money favourite, No Politics Please, a 100m from the winning post.
Chisty’s had to wait for his winning turn until the afternoon’s feature event, the Mr Mauritius Handicap. It was, however, no easy win for Daniel David’s even-money favourite, Star Phoenix. Robin Corner’s Capture the Moment nearly pulled off an upset victory. In fact, had the six-year-old not lost four lengths at the start, and also not pushed into the lead within the first furlong, he would have brought smiles on bookmakers’ faces.
Nevertheless, Star Phoenix was ridden in a businesslike manner – in mid-bunch till the final turn before Chisty joined the battle for supremacy with Capture the Moment and passed the friendless runner only 50m from the winning post.
Serengetti went to the start as a 2-1 favourite but his innings got curtailed after he started bleeding at the halfway stage of the 1,600m Royal Challenge Handicap. Sugar Baby won the race from Asprey and Indigo. The winner was held behind the leader, Regal Rocket, till the top of the home turn and the visiting jockey, Jagadeesh, sent the seven-year-old mare in to a commanding four-length lead, which was eventually increased, to nearly six lengths at the winning post.
Trainer Vikash Jaiswal, who had saddled No Politics Please to victory, went on to score a double through El Cid in the Kabuki Cup, thanks to Chisty whose saddle on Samarrah got slipped after the horse took a slow jump out. In any case, the increasing ‘ring’ odds of the horse – from half-money to 2-1 – also pointed to his expected performance in the race. However, Chisty’s antics in the saddle offered little relief for the bookmakers as El Cid attracted a substantial wagering at 4-1, minutes before the starter dispatched the field.
