The presence of the country’s most successful trainer of all time, Rashid Byramji, warmed the cockles of old-timers' hearts at the Calcutta racecourse on Saturday. The man with the Midas touch showed that he has lost none of his wizardry when he led in Avesco in the opening event and then lifted the Independence Cup with Make My Day. It was good to see the three-year-olds holding centre-stage after quite a few failures earlier in the season. They are like the future of horse racing and unless they put their best foot forward, it’s a step backwards. On this day, the top three slots in the race for the Independence Cup were occupied by the youngsters – all of them fillies. Following Make My Day home were the fast finishing Must Be Magic and fully stretched Strike A Deal.

The seven-furlong race saw Autocrat and Sampson setting a cracking pace with Strike A Deal sitting at his tail. Make My Day was in the rear of the field but made up ground on the outside before the turning for home. The filly with Mahesh astride then drifted to the outer rails. Strike A Deal ran out of steam while Must Be Magic came with a good run down the centre.

Two natural front-runners were ridden in check on this day with fairly good results. Other than Must Be Magic, the four-year-old gelding Ashridge was kept on a tight leash till the home turn in the 1,800 metres race for the Compassionate Handicap. Sampson brought the son of Placerville out of Academic with a great gallop along the rails but was done in by the short straight at this centre as compared to Bangalore where he is stationed. In Calcutta, it’s difficult to take the bend eight deep and still pull it off unless the horse is above class. In this case, apprentice Shezad Khan rode a copybook race on the winner Auckley and had opened up an useful lead before the distance post.

The afternoon commenced with the bred-in-the-blue colt Avesco (Razeen-Tarnished Lady) putting up a brilliant show over seven-furlongs. The chestnut closed at fairly playable odds of 12/10 and won as he liked in the hands of Christopher Alford. He is therefore an obvious candidate for the Colts Trial, if not the Monsoon Derby. Thus far, there does not seem to be any local colt worth his salt on the horizon but there’s still some time to go.

Ten-year-old Grand Pere has a very suitable name. It means grandfather in French. He once again displayed his ability to gallop despite 61 kg on his back. Trainer Christopher Gleich’s runner got the better of much fancied Mrs Jones after a keen tussle all the way down the straight. There was really nothing much else in the race as the others were also-rans.

The favourite Glorious Invention won the Tasmac Handicap in great style, collaring runaway Iora without much fuss. The Bath-trained winner was piloted by M Krishna pretty competently. However, the Stewards didn’t take too kindly to Jugnu Gurung sitting tight on Apyrous who was obviously in the field for an airing. He needs more ground but could well have finished closer to the winner had he been persisted with. Gurung’s licence has been withdrawn till April 2011.

The afternoon ended with a bold gamble on Argentina coming good. The top-weight was working brilliantly and reproduced the spurts on the track. While the Jasbir Singh-Pawan Sharma team had much to cheer about, the ante-post favourite De La Paid was not spotted. She finished in the ruck as did another fancied runner Star Infinity.