The 37th renewal of the Sprinters' Cup is sure to provide a good, competitive field and a pulsating finish. A runaway winner in a top class sprint is a rarity but Bergamo won by a distance breaking the track record at Calcutta in 1985 while the filly Time and Place put eight long lengths between her and the second placed Class Apart at Hyderabad in 1988. On the other hand, the camera has been required to decide the winner on nine occasions. Bergamo and Time and Place were sired by the Usha Stud stallion Common Land whose influence on the race was phenomenal. He himself sired eight winners of the race and he figures as the damsire of two others. 

In recent years, the result of the Dr. S.C. Jain Sprinters' Championship, Gr.2 has had a significant impact on the Sprinters' Cup. 75 % of the winners of the first named race have won or placed in the latter. 14 favourites have won the Sprinters' Cup and 19 of the winners in 36 runnings have been four year-olds. Interestingly, while this is a good race for the Classic crop, only three  - Carnival, Polar Falcon and Haunting Memories - of the 19 four year-old winners were Classic winners themselves. This year, the Classic crop has a very poor representation. 

Two Classic winning mares from the 2010 crop - Amelia and Mariinsky - were in training at the beginning of this year and it seemed as if they would bid adieu to racing after a run during the Invitation Cup week-end. Both, however, have been retired and are back at the place of their birth. We do, however, two current Classic winning fillies, Godspeed and Maisha entered for this race but they also hold a lien to run in the Super Mile Cup on Sunday. Maisha will run in neither of the two races as she competes in the Suresh Mahindra Million, Gr.2 on Sunday while Godspeed, who has never raced below 1400 m., will most probably run in the Super Mile. Other double entries are the Calcutta challenger Shaktiroop who, it is learned, will take his chance in the Super Mile, while it is likely that Maximus, heartened by his last start victory over Maisha over this distance, will run here.  

Last year, Nefyn won the race from Dancing Prances and Six Speed and verdict was a head and a short-head. The three of them are again in the fray and if they can produce a similar close finish, the Mahalakshmi railbirds will be thrilled to bits. The Sprinters' Cup has been twice by Klairon Gold (1983 and 1984), Oasis Star (2008 and 2009), Attila (2011 and 2012) and Nefyn (2013 and 2014). 

No one has yet won the race thrice and the veteran Nefyn will be attempting to do just that. Bezan Chenoy-trained gelding is on his tried and trusted path of going for the big race after a run in the Dr. S.C. Jain Sprinters' Championship, Gr.2. He had won it in 2013 and though he was only seventh of nine runners in 2014, it did not stop him from winning the Sprinters' Cup a second time in 2014. In both his big wins he was partnered by J. Fortune. He was ridden by jockey Dashrath Singh on his last start. Five of Nefyn's 11 wins have come with Dashrath Singh aboard. Nefyn, who will be at attractive odds, comes from behind with a late run. A victory for the nine year-old would thus be something of an upset. It will be popular, however, because it will be historic and the Mahalakshmi crowd will not be entirely oblivious of the fact. 

Nefyn is owned by Mr. Dilip Thomas, a keen golf enthusiast. Nefyn is named after a golf course at the North-West Wales seaside resort. Mr. Thomas's other runner Brynhill is also named after a golf course in Vale of Glamorgan in South Wales. Nefyn is trained by Bezan Chenoy whose daughter Nazak schools Brynhill. Unlike Nefyn, Brynhill likes to get down to business early and play the catch-me-if-you can game. He was caught close home on his last start in Dr. S.C. Jain Sprinters' Championship, Gr.2 by Dancing Prances and beaten just a neck, a narrow verdict that could be reversed depending on how the race unfolds.   

Dancing Prances and Speed Six are likely to head the betting market. Last year, Dancing Prances was receiving 2.5 kgs. from Nefyn as well as Speed Six. They will all be at level weights on Saturday. That may not be significant because the Ace gelding has matured and is on a hot five win streak, all over 1200 m. and all with Sandesh astride. Dancing Prances does have the toe to be upfront but it is the strong finish which is his hallmark.  

Speed Six is two years older than Dancing Prances and is more versatile as far as his style of racing is concerned. He is perfectly happy to go to the front just as he is comfortable to wait and come from behind. Like Nefyn, he is a winner of 11 races and of late has won on his alternate starts. Speed Six was to have raced in the Kingfisher Derby Bangalore, Gr.1 but a setback in training meant that he was withdrawn. His dam Six Speed did run in that race and looked very much a winner till Allaire nailed her close home. She won the Kingfisher Indian 1000 Guineas, Gr.1 but Allaire thrashed her in the Kingfisher Indian Oaks, Gr.1. She ended her racing career winning Chief Minister's Cup, Gr.3 over 1200 m. Haunting Memories, a full-sister to Six Speed, had almost a similar career. She was kept in training much longer and won the Nanoli Stud Sprinters' Cup, Gr.1. The long and short of it is that while the class of this family has carried it over longer distances, sprinting is its true metier. Nefyn beat Speed Six by a nose at Calcutta in this race in 2013 while last year the margin was a head and a short-head. A year's gap between the two races but the form franked to a milligram! Dr. Mallya's Padmanabhan-trained runner needs a sliver of fortune to be third time lucky. 

Bullseye (Kheleyf - La Cienaga), running for the Jacqueline partnership, has had more press for non-racing reasons. She made her debut in November as a late three year-old and made up for the lost time by winning four of her five races in just over two months, breaking the track record for 1000 m. at Mahalakshmi. That prompted the connections to take her to Calcutta for the Nanoli Stud Sprinters' Cup where she was well supported with Richard Hughes in the saddle. She failed to make it on the board for the only time in her career. Her next two runs were winning efforts but she has not earned a bracket in her last four starts and she is yet to win a black-type race.   

Invincible Prince (Invincible Spirit - Rossa di Rugiada) is somewhat like Bullseye in that he, too, has no black-type win against his name. The two did meet during the last Bangalore Summer Season in the B.T.C. Anniversary Cup, Gr.2 over 1400 m. where a short-head separated them just behind the winner Machiavellianism.  Invincible Prince's dam was bought at 2009 Goff's Sale for Euros 62,000. Bullseye and Invincible Prince are 'got-abroads' bred on the successful Danzig-Sharpen Up cross and trained by probably the best two handlers in the country so quite capable of running above their known form.

PAST THE POST 

When Rashid Byramji visited Usha Stud to look at the first crop of the new stallion Common Land, he liked the look of a colt out of Clocked. The breeder Maj. P.K. Mehra wanted the trainer to buy a colt out of Miss Goolagong and offered a package deal. Byramji stuck to his choice but told the breeder that he would recommend the other colt. Byramji kept his word and advised his former assistant Sandeep Mangalorkar, then just setting up his stall in Mumbai, about the Miss Goolagong colt. The Clocked colt turned out to be Almanac who went on to win the Indian Triple Crown and the Invitation Cup. The Miss Goolagong colt was named Klairon's Gold and became the first horse to win the Sprinters' Cup twice.