There were quite a few close finishes during the afternoon but none closer than the Ramkirpal Cup where a mere nose separated the winner Royal Honour from Rising Power. The Patrick Quinn-trained sprinter thus completed a hat-trick of wins. Apprentice Zarar Alam, who had partnered him during his two other successes, shot the five-year-old ahead and though he was drifting out in the straight when challenged by Rising Power along the rails, he kept him going to win by a whisker.

There were three cup events during the afternoon and The Albert Piperno Memorial Cup – named after one of the city’s most popular bookmaker’s of all time – saw yet another edge-of-the-seat thriller. Rookie Ankit Kumar – still to ride his first winner – was atop Imtiaz Sait-schooled Silver Silver and he closed as the public choice. The apprentice in fact did quite well to show daylight to his mount at the 600 marker but unfortunately that was not sufficient. A determined Trevor Patel rode like a man possessed astride Bharath Singh-trained Sergeant Pepper to deliver the goods close home.

The third cup event of the afternoon, The Artaius Cup, saw Javed Khan-schooled Smokey Baba pull off  a fairly easy triumph with Imran Chisty atop. Tracking pacemaker Alicante and Scarlatti, Chisty urged his mount to hit the front at the distance post and the grey gelding by Imtiyaz out of January’s Storm did the rest. Tasveer ran on to occupy the runner-up berth.

The afternoon commenced with Christopher Alford riding a punishing finish astride Bath-trained Haynestown to stave off Ijlal who looked threatening on the outside. Sired by Cool Creek out of Haynes Park, the winner is a fairly useful sprinter who had been running consistently and his win came as no surprise.

Alford however disappointed atop Manhattan Rain by giving his mount a free rein from the word go – a surprising change of tactics. Shyam Habbu-trained Delafruz (Ikhtyar-Zuni) followed the pace-setter till the straight before surging ahead to win The Hydrofoil Handicap fairly easily from a struggling Impressive Move and Snow Mountain.

Though Daniel David-trained Calypso Girl was backed to the exclusion of all others in the race for the Sun Lion Handicap, she did not show any inclination to gallop at any stage of the race. Vikash Jaiswal’s seven-year-old Alacrity shot ahead in the straight and would have probably seen the winning post had not a determined Srinivas Rao astride Jasbir Singh-trained Fankaar continued to persist with his mount on the wide outside to eventually win quite comfortably.

Jasbir notched up a brace when speedy Rithambhra (Sk Zaffar Riaz up) came out of the stalls like a scalded cat and made every post of the lower division of the Announcer Handicap a winning one to only just hold on by the skin of his teeth from a fast finishing Swiss King, The false favourite in the race was Spartacus and he was never in it .

Bharath Singh-trained Copernicus was backed down to on-money in the afternoon’s final event but the colt had no answer to Arti Doctor’s Gallop To Glory (Kamlesh up) who won as he like at lucrative odds of 9/2. He is by the late sire Mathematician out of Perfect Rhythm.