Pesi Shroff has just last month completed his first decade as a trainer. In that time, he has sent out five winners of the Maharaja of Morvi Trophy. The five winners are Set Alight, Jacqueline, Portia, Cardinal and Maisha. The first four named started as favourites in their respective Guineas races with the first two winning and the other two placing. Maisha is most likely to be the shortest priced runner this Sunday. Like Set Alight and Jacqueline, Maisha (Footstepsinthesand - My Pension) is also a winner of the Bangalore Fillies' Championship Stakes, Gr.1.

A winner of four of her eight starts, Maisha was second in the remaining four. Her conquerors are Be Safe (twice), Shivalik Storm and Quasar, all Gr.1 winners. She has never been beaten by a filly thus far and is herself the only Gr.1 winner in the field of 17.  One of the six 'got-abroads' in the fray, she has had a winning run during the current season and clearly stands out as the one to beat. She is owned by Mr. & Mrs. Mehernosh Deboo whose colours were carried to victory last year in this very race by Mariinsky. Xisca is another good filly owned by the Deboos and their blue-white maltese cross silks have achieved a ready recognition despite not racing with what can be called a large string. Maisha herself will not be aware of the Venlafaxine cloud which hangs over her but the trainer and the owners would surely feel the pressure. Maisha usually comes from behind with a preference for a rail run. In big field, she would need the openings at the right time.

In the Bangalore Fillies' Championship Stakes, Gr.1 back in June, Maisha finished three and a half lengths ahead of Alexandra Mills (Ace - Caractere) with Godspeed (Multidimensional - Almandine) another three and a quarter lengths adrift in third. Alexandra Mills has recently won the Bangalore 1000 Guineas, Gr.2 while Godspeed travelled to Hyderabad and picked up the Deccan Bookmakers' Hyderabad Fillies' Champion Stakes, Gr.3 earlier in August. Supreme Fairy (Multidimensional - Supreme Princess) is the other black-type winner in the contest having won the Golconda 1000 Guineas, Gr.2. These three fillies have the best credentials to put it across the likely favourite.

Alexandra Mills finished with a sparkling run to nail Nuray on the post in Bangalore. Her unraced dam is a full-sister to Six Speed and Haunting Memories who both started as odds-on favourites for this race in their time. Six Speed won by just a short-head while her younger sister was beaten two lengths by Guest Connections. This is a brilliant but short-running family whose members eventually excel over sprints. Speed Six demonstrated that quite recently. That and Maisha's comprehensive victory over her in their only meeting mean that Darius Byramji's filly has a tough task on her hand in a big field over the best galloping course in the country as she attempts to become the seventh filly to bag the Bangalore and Indian 1000 Guineas double. Mariinsky did so last last year and the great RRB achieved it with Mystic Memory and Six Speed. 

Godspeed has won four of her five races and her only defeat came in Bangalore when she ran third behind Maisha and Alexandra Mills. She has won all her races from the front but noticeably, either through design or circumstances, she did not make the running on the day she lost.  In her next essay she accounted for Bold Majesty who has gone on to win two black-type races and then ventured to Hyderabad to pickup the Fillies' Championship Stakes, Gr.3 where she had the scalp of Supreme Fairy who ran a rather uncharacteristic, lack-lustre race. She has not raced since, the after effects of the journey to Hyderabad and a minor foot injury being responsible.The long gap since her last race and the fact that even when she won she tended to wander about in the closing stages are the question marks against her. A filly needs to be fully fit to win a race of this nature, especially from the front and the mock race she has had gives no clues. She had a solitary rival (an unplaced 3YO stablemate) so it was hardly a race. Her stable, though is flying high and she seeks to follow in the footsteps of Secret Star, Forest Fantasy and Vijays Pride, the three fillies to have won the Hyderabad fillies race and the Indian 1000 Guineas.

Supreme Fairy made her debut only during Bangalore's summer season and has progressed steadily winning four races from seven starts. Her only poor effort was in Godspeed's race. She comes from behind with a determined rather than a scintillating run which is not surprising considering that like Godspeed she is, on pedigree, more of an Oaks type than a Guineas candidate. The Mahalakshmi straight will suit her, though.The connections - owners, trainer and the jockey - are taking the Vijays Pride route (Running Flame was the trail blazer being the first to do it) with her and so know what is required. She may not win but it will be a surprise if she runs a bad race.

Within two lengths of Supreme Fairy at Hyderabad was the pair of Western India 'got-abroad' fillies Laurita (Ghostzapper - Champagne Cocktail) and Westphalia (Bushranger - Peace). Ghostzapper's stock has zoomed since Dr. John Weld picked up Champagne Cocktail at Keeneland in 2010 for $ 25,000. That year the Adena Springs stallion stood at $ 30,000. Champagne Cocktail was a minor winner and producer but there is much to like in the next two dams. Westphalia, having won three races on the trot, had earned a break and was running after a longish gap. She finished on purposefully and the run ought to have sharpened her up for Sunday. Her sire is a middling sprinter but her dam is a Sadler's Wells mare from an excellent family. She has the credentials to upset some applecarts.

Maisha's bracket-mate Bon Vivant (Multidimensional - Cest Bon) is the only unbeaten runner in the field. She made a late winning debut in November and followed it up quickly with another victory. Her grandam Priceless was the favourite to win this race in 2002 but finished off the board. Priceless, however, was a top miler and Bon Vivant has the pedigree, if not the experience, to get the job done. It remains to be seen whether she is employed as a pacemaker or utilised as an emergency second arrow.

The late Dady Adenwalla, first a trainer of long standing and later the Senior Stipendary Steward at R.W.I.T.C., always maintained that Mansoor Shah was one of the most capable of Western India trainers. Shah's forte is in his astute placing of his wards in handicaps; Classics are not really his cup of tea. He will saddle Polydences (Oratorio - Perfect Polly) on Sunday and the filly deserves her place in the line-up with two good wins in her last two runs. Her sire, a winner of the Eclipse Stakes, Gr.1, was an excellent racehorse who was retired to Coolmore Stud for a covering fee of  30,000 Euros. That fee diminished steadily and eventually, despite getting some good horses, he was sold to stand in South Africa. Perfect Polly was bought at the Tattersalls 2009 December Sale for a whopping 100,000 Guineas though she was not in foal. She visited Oratorio in 2010 (then at 15,000 Euros) and came to India carrying Polydences. Perfect Polly was a smart sprinter who won two Listed races and placed in a Gr.3 event. She herself never raced beyond 1200 m. Polydences could get a mile but that is far from a given.

The average rating of an Indian 1000 Guineas over the last five years is 68.4. This year's field can muster up a figure of only 62.1 lending further credence to the feeling that the 2011 crop is rather poor. Usually, the average rating of the Guineas at Mumbai is much higher than the 'regional' equivalents. Not so this year. At Calcutta, where the race is only a Gr.3 event, it was 58.6. Hyderabad and Bangalore races are run as Gr.2 contests and their ratings were 60.7 and 60.2 respectively. The ratings don't justify their status in the calendar. Just as a matter of interest, the average rating of One Thousand Guineas run in May at Newmarket and won by Andre Fabre's Miss France was 105.6.

This year's race is notable for the fact that there is no runner owned by Dr. Vijay Mallya, Dr. M.A.M. Ramaswamy or Mr. Deepak Khaitan. So, a good quiz question would be - "Which was the last Indian 1000 Guineas in which none of  the "Big Three"  had a runner ?"

One interesting observation to emerge from the study of ratings is that in the last six runnings the top rated filly won the race if she had a rating of 100 plus. An outsider won the race when the field lacked a filly rated in three figures.

PAST THE POST

Seven of the 17 fillies in contention have not raced during the current season. There is a feeling that since mock races became popular, the need for a race run has diminished. Like most perceptions it not entirely true. Between 1975 and 1993, nine fillies won the Indian 1000 Guineas without a preparatory race. From 1994 to 2013, only five fillies have done so.

Of the owners with runners in this Sunday's race, none has led in more winners than Mr. Shyam Ruia. His four winners are Venus de Milo (1968), Vox Populi (1978), Au Panache (1987) and Alma Mater (2011). The common link between those four fillies is that they all went into Indian 1000 Guineas without a prep run. The first two were trained by Uttam Singh, a past master at getting them ready for a specific target. Au Panache was saddled by Uttam Singh's son Zadmal Singh while Pesi Shroff trained Alma Mater. Au Panache had won her race in Pune on 9 August and when she went to the post for the Indian 1000 Guineas on 18 December, there was a gap of 130 days between the two races. That's the longest gap that a winner of Indian 1000 Guineas has had from her previous race. So fans of Godspeed ought be heartened that the daughter of Multidimensional will be running after a mere 110 days !