It was a memorable opening day of the truncated Monsoon Meeting at RCTC on Wednesday for more reasons than one. The RCTC is now under the umbrella of a UK based company called Sky Exchange who are the official sponsors of the Calcutta races. Further, as their new sponsorship/marketing partners, RCTC is joining hands with ITW Consulting – a leading sports media and entertainment company.

Racing on the opening afternoon was dominated by young apprentice Saqlain Siddiqui who reeled off a hat-trick with D Knight Mysore, Baaeed and Thiago. The first two named are trained by B.Mahesh while the last named is from Patrick Quinn’s yard. D Knight Mysore (Letir Mor-Skyelady) won the Independence Cup start to finish at odds of 8/1. The favourite Flying Eagle was a tame fourth. Baaeed (Excellent Art-Flaming Glory) won the Sophisticated Lady Handicap in similar fashion with Fenicia Glint finishing a faraway second. By declaring the talented light-weight Saqlain atop Thiago, Quinn was able to run his ward at 48.5kg. Allowing Shivalik Silk to call the shots till into the straight, Thiago (Perfect Stride-Suezy Oh) sailed smoothly into the lead and held on well from top-weight Ember Glow.

The afternoon opened with the running of the Citi Limits Handicap. Neil Darashah’s Reagan was installed as the firm favourite and ran a forward race. He ran out of steam at the top of the straight when Legend Returns took up the running. He appeared to have the winning post in his sight when apprentice Tejeshwar brought Manvendra Singh-trained Wind Chaser with a blistering run on the outside. The experienced six-year-old mare by Top Class out of Provocateur used her handicap advantage to good effect.

Trainer Suraj P Shaw led in his first career winner when The Mentalist (Phoenix Tower-Serenity Star) – a recent import from Chennai – won the Alibi Handicap comfortably from the word ‘go’in the hands of BR Kumar.  Jaiswal-trained Script seems to have improved somewhat and ended up a fair runner-up in a very poor field.

Neil Darashah’s Queenstown (Phoenix Tower-Kaleidoscope) was the rage of the ring in the Swatantrata Handicap and the three-year-old filly did not disappoint. The short-priced runner won as she liked with A Imran Khan doing the needful. The best of the rest was Star Justice.