It was a a fairly memorable afternoon for followers of form at the RCTC on Saturday as several well-backed winners at lucrative odds made their coffers jingle. The day commenced well for  form-workers as Vijay Singh-trained Avision (Ace-Blurr) ran away with the upper division of the Woolver Valley Handicap, a distance clear of the struggling totalisator favourite Bhima. The fashionably bred filly has more races in store for her. She was available at 5/2.

The main event, The Mayor’s Cup, was on expected lines with the two front-line contenders from the Rakesh Kumar Wadhwan stable (Star Symphony and River Blitz) occupying the first two spots. Shailesh Shinde on the former had little to no trouble in steering the Bharath Singh-trained runner by Placerville out of Symphony of Fire to a facile victory despite taking the longest route home.

Flying Star from Patrick Quinn’s stable ran in this Class I event with a rating of 60 to finish an unwelcome fourth and quite naturally the handicapper took congnisance of this fact and hiked up his rating considerably. To make matters worse, trainer Quinn was fined a total of Rs 20,000/- (for giving unsatisfactory instructions to jockey Surjeet Singh and behaviour unbecoming of a professional) and jockey Surjeet was fined Rs 5,000/- for unsatisfactory handling of his mount. The mystery behind this final entry lay in the fact that the horse was permitted to come to this centre after the migration deadline as a result of the ‘final entry’. Unfortunately for the connections, the speedy front-runner failed to pick up a race prior to this event though he ended up runner-up twice.

With the withdrawal of Sangoma, there were only four left in for the 2000 metres race for the Indian Air Force Cup. Despite the small field, the race turned out to be an interesting affair as with no natural pace-setter in the race, the favourite Accrews once again found himself in front for this long trek. Vinay Jaiswal on Risky Business very rightly sat at his tail while top-weight Araceli and Secret Reward followed. The order virtually remained the same till the top of the straight where Vikash Jaiswal’s Risky Businness quite easily edged ahead of the front-runner. However, Christopher Alford atop Araceli tried to forge a passage between Risky Business and Araceli and later objected unsuccessfully against the winner Risky Business for interference.

The Eastern Air Command Cup saw a major upset in the form Imtiaz Sait-schooled Silver Sands who was ridden to a stunning victory by Shezad Khan. Fancied runners like Ice Fantasy, Alexander and Dancing Dame were not sighted. Apical Finala was an useful runner-up and will be worth keeping an eye on.

The other cup event of the afternoon, The BK Poddar Memorial Cup, saw Javed Khan – trained Escape To Victory (Ppal Bull-Madaeh) virtually make every post a winning one in the hands of Imran Chisty. Once again, the public fancies Alarbus and Romancer ran well below par.

The combination of trainer Christopher Gleich and jockey Melvyn Maseyk reaped a rich harvest as their Secret Whispers and Ballantyne were the first past the winning post. The former won the Wheels Handicap fairly comfortably from Tasveer while the top-weight favourite Pirateer was a poor fourth. Ballantyne lived up to his current improved form and picked up the afternoon’s final race by staving off the totalisator favourite Spartacus.

Shafiq Khan-trained Masteroftheseas caused quite a stir when he shouldered top-weight and got the better of runaway Rithambhra close home. It was a punishing finish from jockey B. Mahesh which won the day.