Despite a card-sans-glamour, there were thrills galore at the Calcutta racecourse on Wednesday as hard-fought races were the order of the day. Due to healthy competition, odds of fancied runners were enticing and winning punters had a field day. 

The five first favourites which obliged were available at lucrative odds - Victory Vibes 9/4, Royal Companion 9/4, Secret Reward 18/10, Sokudo 6/4 and Atwater 9/4. The other two fancied runners were Ocean Clipper 9/4 and Ijlal 4/1 – both were virtually second favourites.

The men who stole the show on this warm, sunny afternoon were none other than the highly talented youngster Trevor Patel and veteran schooler Bharath Singh. Not only did they pocket a cup double but also got the better of the on-money Kinshasa with Ocean Clipper (Ontario-Scarborough) in the day’s opening event. Trevor has a down-to-earth inimitable style-without-flair but delivers the goods when required – which is what it’s all about – and not a grandstand finish.

The connections of Bharath Singh-trained Secret Reward must have had their hearts in their mouths as the tearaway front-runner Gods Creation seemed in a desperate hurry to reach the winning post – a noble intention no doubt but the mode of execution left much to be desired. Had Shailesh Shinde taken a leaf out of Tograllu’s book when the colt last won, then there might have well been another story to tell. As it was, Gods Creation covered the first seven furlongs of the mile trip in 1min 24 sec flat (false rails up). Commentator Cyrus Madan described the run with a very apt phrase – “like a bat out of hell”. Then, the inevitable happened, the colt started shortening his strides and under Trevor’s stick, the well-backed Secret Reward was devouring ground despite his crushing impost. The giant of a colt by Al Nasr Alwasheek out of Queen Of Swords collared the front-runner close home and brought much cheer to Mr Gautam Sengupta’s camp comprising his better half Mrs Yasmeen Sengupta, Mr. Chiranjit Basu and Mr Soumitra Banerji. The rest of the field were bystanders and should be scratched from memory as their runs were too bad to be true.

Bharath and Trevor combined once more on Sokudo to lift the Bahrain Trophy in style. Mohit Singh on Royal Saga cut across the entire field rather dangerously to hit the front. But Trevor was unnerved as he neatly placed his mount in the third slot. When Sokudo (Inhabitant-Amber Dancer) did hit the front in the straight, it was Star Impact and Mahesh who ultimately challenged him but to no avail. Thus, Mr Joydeep Dutta Gupta, Mrs Anusya Gupta and Mr SK Koshik had their long wait finally rewarded. After all, this very horse was withdrawn sometime ago after being installed as the firm favourite against Mesmeriser.

The cleanest and most facile winner of the day was Arti Doctor-trained Victory Vibes (Greensmith-Excitement) who made every post of the Cupid Handicap a winning one. Jockey Kamlesh seemed to be enjoying the solo run as the rest of the field were outclassed. Fancied by some, Blue Mountain was slow into stride and never in with an iota of chance.

Apprentice Ajoy Roy has improved considerably from his early days and he proved it with a fine win on Javed Khan-trained Ijlal (Diffident-Roman Eagle). After a good jump-out, he sat on the tail of the favourite Swiss King and was not cowed down by the presence of C. Alford on the latter. Aided by his 4kg allowance, Ijlal pulled away in the straight to post a much overdue win.

Daniel David and B Sreekanth combined to bring home the bacon with Royal Companion (Glory Of Dancer-Ippodamia). The six-year-old had the benefit of a good mock race and was not found wanting over the seven-furlong trip. Naughty Lass was the best of the rest.

After drawing a blank in the first six races, champion rider Christopher Alford finally extracted his pound of flesh from the local track with a no-nonsense victory atop Atwater (Mr Mellon-Taj Mahal). However, the soft handling of front-running Stupid Cupid after his odds expanded to 6/1 was an eyesore to say the least. He nevertheless finished a flying third.