The wait is over folks! After a three-month lull, the monsoon meeting at RCTC takes off on Wednesday. Twenty-one race-days have been scheduled over the next four months, concluding on October 14. During that period, 148 races are slated to be conducted, 44 of these being Cup events. The Monsoon Derby is scheduled to be run on October 4.

There is however a reduction in stake-money from the last monsoon meet which had two more racedays. The reason being that there were a far greater number (429) of three-years-old and over horses last season. The advertised stake money by the Royal Calcutta Turf Club is Rs 7.95 crore.

With the suspension of winter champion trainer Vijay Singh for most part of the monsoon meet (July 14 – Sept 30), brother Bharath will undoubtedly try to rake in a major portion of the stake money into his coffers. Some of the other men to follow during the early part of the season would be Javed Khan, Manvendra Singh, Vikash Jaiswal, Jasbir Singh and Shafiq Khan. They will nevertheless have to contend with the ‘monsoon queen’ Arti Doctor who has a strong contingent of three-year-olds under her wings. Conspicuous by their absence will be trainers Patrick Quinn and Daniel David who are both sidelined by lengthy periods of suspension. The horses running in the MAM colours will be under the care of Errol Bhungard. There will be a total of 21 ‘A’ licensed jockeys and six ‘B’ licence holders.

A total of 503 horses are currently stabled at this centre, of which 368 are three-year-olds and over, while 135 are two-year-olds. The three-year-olds who made an impression during the winter and are likely to be seen in action during the monsoon classics are Captain Cook, Setaflame, Waveafterwave, Yokumoku, Isle Of Avalon, Noverro, Suzanna and Stevalena. It is left to be seen whether star performer Multitude will take a tilt at the Monsoon Derby.

This centre has had more than its usual share of rain during the past week or so and the unique monsoon track here is certain to run true to form from day-one. The handicapper has refrained from dropping the scale and horses will commence the season at their winter end-of-season marks. He however mentioned that the three-year-olds which have been successful at the Bangalore Summer races will be penalised accordingly, while Class I runners like Snowdrift and Mr Gorgeous, who have benefitted by ‘drops’ during their South India sojourn, will also be hiked suitably so that there is no cause for complain from any quarter.

While local favourites like Christopher Alford, Shailesh Shinde and Kamlesh will once again be on the prowl, visiting horsemen like Trevor Patel, Sandesh, Ashish, PS Chouhan and Dashrath Singh are certain to make their task a lot more difficult during the major race-days.