One does not, however, wish to measure the total strength of the local youngsters by the bad performance of a three-year-old who had failed to live with the tortuous changes during the summer months. Weather improving with the fall of winter, the Serious Spender-Arctic Theme filly from Vijay Singh’s yard is bound to bouce back to her first season form and her defeat as 3-10 hot-favourite at the hands of On The Bit, in the Beauregard Cup, must be forgotten as a bad dream.
Alegria did shoot into the lead after shrugging off the leader Tequila Shot inside the last two furlongs but the Vijay Singh-trainee failed to kick clear of On The Bit who was kept in close attendance by apprentice F. Khan. Alegria struggled in the final 200 metres thus making the task of the four-year-old from trainer John Stephens’ yard far too easy. Peace Envoy finished a decent third after luxuriously gracing the wrong-end of the field.
Bold Chieftan revealed as much it was expected of the Daniel David-trainee to do so to bag the feature event, the 1,400-metre Delhi Race Club Cup. The 45-100 hot-favourite looked to be in danger of being downed as Anolini, the better fancied of the Vijay’s duo, came abreast of the Placerville-Shamirana four-year-old inside the last furlong and half. Jockeys on two horses were seen going hell for leather and it became apparent before they touched the wire that Nic Connorton would maintain his supreriority over Cristopher Alford. Arendal the other Vijay’s runner placed a poor fourth, behind the pace-setter Beneficent, after being well up with the field.
The fact that the Chieftan was deliberately kept underdone since his Southern outings and the couple of spurts early in the week had tuned up the topweight to the neccessity. But again, Vijay has quite a variety in his yard to tackle such Class I horses and it will interesting to see how far Bold Chieftan improves upon this victory.
Trainer Asfand has not been in luck during the wet season. He nevertheless, set the ball rolling for the favourites to dominate in the rest of the card when Lady Shirley notched up the 1,100-metre Cally Handicap after a brief struggle with the topweight Tsaynen Blue who tried to win from the start. There is, however, not much to talk about the race that was for horses rated 18 and below.
Although neglected in the ‘ring’ at 4’s, Calabash was the impressive winner of the Sea Spray Handicap. The Mujeeb-ur-Rehman trained three-year-old had served the notice of his coimng victory in his morning work outs as he matched strides with Rare Gold, a fluent winner on the concluding day of the monsoon season. The Cristofori-Fluid Drive son, however, took a tardy jump out thus prompting Cristopher to urge the three-year-old to catch up with the field. In fourth till the turn, Calabash improved along the rails to lead nearing the distance-post marker and maintained the order, though the late-finishing Grecian Prince and Glass Slipper put in impressive acceleration to squeeze the final verdict to three-parts of a length. But Cristopher had the race well swened up before touching the wire.
Super Smile was a medium of a big gamble in the Gold Span Handicap. Backed from 5-1 down to 3’s, the Bharath Singh-trained five-year-old mare made a short-work of the field after the Twist And Turn-Exultation daughter hit the front and continued to increase it past the 600-metre marker.
Regency Times was expected to win untroubled but Nic Connorton on the Shareef Dancer-Mafuta three-year-old found an able challenger in Aherlow in the 1,400-metre Leonidas Handicap. Going in pairs till they entered the home-stretch as Raaz tried win from the start, Connorton on the 55-100 public-choice took charge of the running nearing the last furlong post and managed to hold on to the advantage from a badly shifting out Vijay Singh-ward on whom Crisrtopher was far from his best.