Big drama. High tension. Varied opinions. And a debatable final result. This is what exactly happened after the Pesi Shroff schooled D'Artagnan flashed past the post first in the Zavaray Poonawalla Bangalore Summer Derby, which offered a whopping 2.45 crore to the winner. The winner and his pilot Yash Narredu needed to win the race again in the stewards room following an inquiry by the stewards, who rightly chose to look at the infringement caused to the runner-up Margaretta after D'Artagnan shifted out at a crucial stage of the race and in the process took the queen filly out, resulting in Margaretta losing her momentum for a couple of strides.

Margaretta did suffer from the shifting out of D'Artagnan, but would the result be different is debatable. It was clear after the small infringement that the on-money favourite was travelling the fastest at the end and only lost out by half-a-length. The stewards too were divided in their opinions before overruling what at end appeared a fair decision, though it must be mentioned that Margaretta was very unlucky thanks to a overconfident effort of Vivek and his shocking decision not to object against the winner for shifting and taking him out at the all-important end.  

The cowardly decision of Vivek not to protest resulted in tongue wagging, racing pundits, professionals and the racing buffs forming their own opinions and debating on the contentious `no protest'. Is Vivek really naive or was he under pressure not to file the protest was the topic of discussion. Champion trainer Pesi Shroff in a telephonic chat with indiarace.com made it clear that Vivek was under no pressure, not to object. "At the unsaddling enclosure Vivek told me that he would protest and I told him that he had every right to protest. And after watching the TV replay of the race, I personally thought it was a touch and go and really a 50-50 case, " said Pesi adding that there was definite ground to object. Well the stewards did well to conduct an inquiry and what really in my opinion was a case too close to call, went in favour of Yash and D'Artagnan and Yash must consider himself lucky. 

One needs to doff the hat to Pesi Shroff for leading in his fifth successive Derby victory in Bengaluru, his second home and now the champion has 99 classics wins to his credit. 

Pesi, Yash and D'Artagnan apart, champion trainer Prasanna Kumar cornered glory recording a popular treble through his three well fancied winners, Starzella, Money Bags and Power Of The Sea, while Aravind Ganapathy dropped two bombshells Idi Minnal and Lasya to add to the excitement amidst all the pomp and gaiety on the D-day. 

Money Bags in his fourth straight success this season, powered home to win the BTC Anniversary Cup run over a distance of seven furlongs in record time (1:22.36), bettering the existing mark of (1:23) registered by Once You Go Black two summers ago. Incidentally Once You Go Black from the stables of James McKeown too was in the fray again this year and he performed satisfactorily, finishing a creditable third behind the record breaking winner and the runner-up Ranquelino. 

The Arun Kumar owned Masato from John's yard was another winner on the big day, who made a fine impression. Back after exactly a one year long lay-off, Masato reigned supreme in the Mumbai Cup run over a sprint and on the strength of this victory is certain to provide an encore, when saddled next. 

The Karthik Ganapathy-trained Asterion and Youremanorborne from Pradeep Chouhan's yard were the two other public choices, who justified favouritism to the delight of the followers of form, who enjoyed the better of exchanges on the big day.