Trainer Vijay Singh’s Cadman lifted the Governor’s Cup at RCTC on Saturday and in the process completed a well-deserved quadruple for the leading schooler – his other three winners being Duchamp, Enchanted and Ruby Cube. The mile race for the Governor’s Cup saw the totalisator favourite Shivalik Showers well positioned to strike at the top of the straight but the eight-year-old had no answer to the thunderous gallop unleashed by Cadman (Suraj Narredu up) near the distance post. Barring Sweet Music, who was a game third, the others were never really in it. Aggregated failed to match strides with these horses and faded out.

Another favourite to fall was Sabrejet in the day’s final event. He was pegged back after a brief tussle with the eventual winner Shivesh  (8/1) close home.  The winner was piloted by Zervan. The Shyam Habbu-trained six-year-old was blocked in his previous essay and many considered the mile trip a trifle too long for him. But it was not so. Front-running Sabrejet had no steam in his tank when challenged by the son of Multidimensional out of Burooq. The fancied runners to win at lucrative odds on the day were Romantic Zeal (5/1), Duchamp (4/1) , Enchanted (3/1) and Archivolt (7/2) – making it a profitable afternoon for punters.

The afternoon commenced with James Mckeown-trained Romantic Zeal (Chevalier-Santarelle) winning the Phoenecian Handicap from the fast finishing favourite Constance. However, the latter never posed a serious threat to the mount of Christopher Alford who shouldered top-weight quite impressively.  This full sister to Santero found the 2000m trip to her liking and was travelling well in the straight.

After a couple of failures earlier in the season, Duchamp displayed that he is as good as his pedigree (Multidimensional-Reflected Glory) suggests with a thumping victory in the Aayush Handicap. With leading jockey Sandesh in the saddle, he sailed past the front-running Princess Rumela without any trouble whatsoever.

The third and fourth races were no-whip races  and went more or less according to the script.  Dancing Prince was installed as the favourite in the upper division of The Maltese Prince Handicap but failed narrowly against the next in demand Romantic Lass (Varenaar-Oh So Romantic) with apprentice Rupal Singh astride. Unfortunately, the Raunak Banerji-trained winner burst her blood vessels. The lower division saw a nailbiting finish with Archivolt (Chevalier-Arnatta) and The Sixth Seal locked together at the wire. It was Dhanu Singh Deora’s forceful finish that finally clinched the issue for the Sarfaraz Khan ward by the proverbial whisker.

The Bengal Area Cup went Enchanted’s way in the hands of Suraj Narredu. The speedy filly by Air Support out of Stormy Affair came in nicely from an outside draw to be in a box seat before the turning for home. However, Novikov issued a serious challenge close home but failed narrowly. The two backed runners in the Miss X O Lene Plate run over seven furlongs were Astoria and Alpheratz. The former was on a start-to-finish mission but came apart when challenged by stablemate Ruby Cube (Saamid- Su Doku) with Shezad Khan in the saddl