A colourful New Year's Day crowd were witness to a splendid card of nine races at RCTC on Saturday. The main event, The Indian Produce Stakes saw the filly Tuscany from the Vijay Singh stable make every post a winning one in the hands of Hindu Singh. The favourite Social Truth was conceding 5.5kg to the filly but nevertheless finished a close second. Sired by Roderic O'Connor out of Isn't She Special, Tuscany is owned by the highly successful Poonawalla racing syndicate of western India who had earlier led in another maiden starter – a filly called For Evermore (Excellent Art – Forever Glory) – who displayed marvellous acceleration in the straight to win the lower division of the Accalia Handicap from a front-running Nandini's Pet. She too was piloted by Hindu Singh who was making a return to the local track after serving out a six-week suspension.

The big-boned bay Redoubtable (Letir Mor – Miss Mystique) showed a clean pair of heels to his three rivals while winning the 2200 metres race for the betindiaraces.com RCTC Gold Vase in a canter. Jockey P Ajeeth Kumar varied the pace to a nicety and changed gears near the 1000m marker. After that it was all over bar the shouting for this Rutherford Alford-trained horse.

Two jockeys – Neeraj Rawal and Hindu Singh - completed a double during the afternoon while trainer Vijay Singh brought home a quadruple. Neeraj's first winning mount was atop Aashay Doctor-schooled Cape Tanaros (Western Aristocrat-Laurita) who won the Retained Asset Handicap comfortably from the course favourite Devushka. Neeraj completed his double with Bharath Singh-trained filly Suestado (Western Aristocrat – Scarlet Empress) who won the 2000 metres race for the 91.9 Friends FM Cup in a close finish from front-running Vanguard. The favourite Deemed To Fire was a none too impressive third.

The first of Vijay Singh's quadruple was Melody (Top Class – Bella) who won the upper division of the Accalia Handicap with NS Parmar in the saddle after staving off a challenge from heavily gambled top-weight Properly Posh. Vijay's Legendary Striker (Be Safe-Striking View) was also in the forefront of affairs as he picked up the Telegraph Cup fairly easily with CS Jodha in the saddle.

The Royal Mantle Handicap run over seven furlongs saw top-weight Topnotch finally put his best foot forward. The Manvendra Singh ward was the subject of some in-and-out running and jockey Afzal Khan was fined Rs 5000/- for indifferent handling in his previous essay. The same rider had the audacity to send flying kisses to the New Year's Day crowd while passing the winning post, thus in a way mocking the paltry penalty that he was subjected to by the stipes.

Punters of a deconditioned Black Pearl and a sprightly Agnostic were taken for a ride in the day’s final event as recent western India import Tigrio (Phoenix Tower-Tigresse Noire) from B Mahesh’s yard, was the medium of a fairly large successful gamble. Agnostic – the monsoon Colts Trial winner – failed to match strides with Tigrio – who finished second in a class three race in western India. Was it a very poor show from locally based horses or was there more to this race than meets the eye?