The father and son combination of Satish and Suraj Narredu set the monsoon track on fire on the final day of the monsoon season with a superlative triumph in the HPSL Calcutta Monsoon Derby with their bay colt Casteel (Sanus Per Aquam – Castle Queen). Keeping him a handy third behind pacemaker Global Influence, Suraj gradually improved his position to take over the running at the turning for home to win by over 6 lengths from Nomitsi who was a further six lengths ahead of Forest Fragrance.Nomitsi lost about seven lengths at the start while the Lady Sunshine lost about 15 lengths and became a no-hoper straight away. Suraj said in his post-race comments that the colt Casteel will improve further and will be seen in action in the winter classics. The other outstation challenger Ranquelino ended up a poor fifth. The Narredu family were well and truly in the limelight as one race earlier, Suraj had piloted Rajesh Narredu-trained A Star Is Born (Roderic O’Connor – Angel Dust) to a thrilling victory over Chopin in the HPSL Calcutta Monsoon Cup.The latter was on a start-to-finish mission but Suraj gradually wore him down in the straight to win by half a length.

Sharing the limelight with the Narredus were trainers Patrick Quinn and Paramjit S Jubbal who recorded a treble and double respectively. The first of Quinn’s winners was the unfancied Fortune Warrior (Sanus Per Aquam – Schiavone) who bagged the mile race for the Alcalde Handicap with Shezad Khan in the saddle. Shezad did extremely well to persist with his mount and get the better of the front-running favourite Avon. Quinn next led in Dubai Princess (Gusto – Whistling Strait) who gave Sandesh an armchair ride in the mile race for The Best Of All Handicap. She carried the top-weight easily to a five-length victory over Jahzara. The trainer combined once again with Sandesh in the afternoon’s final event to pocket the sprint for the Shivalik Showers Handicap with the versatile King’s Retreat (Letir Mor – Balmoral Castle) from the runaway Kay Star who was shortening his strides in the final furlong. With this victory King’s Retreat completed a hat-trick this monsoon.

Trainer Paramjit Jubbal had drawn a blank the entire season thus far but produced a pair of aces when it mattered most. Both his winners were at huge odds and were piloted by BR Kumar. The first of them – NRI Fantasy -won an absolute nailbiter from the dead-heating pair of Jean Lafette and By The Book. A late run on the wide outside saw the five-year-old mare by Top Class out of Light Fantasy land the spoils. Kumar was in his element once again when he guided the friendless Nautica (Dandified – On Fleek) to a comfortable victory over Felix in the seven-furlong race for the B Fifty Two Cup.

Apprentice Saba also displayed his mettle on Derby Day as he guided home Shyam Habbu-trained Over The Line (Fiero-Infinity) to a thrilling win in a tight finish from Cyrenaica (Vivek up) in the lower division of the Thrifty Allan Handicap. As expected trainer Aashay Doctor was declared the champion trainer and Yash Narredu the champion jockey.