While Christopher Alford booted home a flawless quadruple at the Calcutta racecourse on Saturday, most of the other riders performed well below expectation. There is no doubt that Alford’s mounts had a stamp of superiority, nevertheless his stamina and appetite-for-winners is admirable. The other talking point of the afternoon was the win of Ocean Element (Black Cash-Aujourdhui) in the opening event, The Coxcomb Handicap. The colt had done nothing to suggest that he should be installed as a firm on-money favourite while odds on all others expanded. The Jaiswal runners Innovator and Incantation were totally disinterested while India Jones left all his chances at the gates.

The guardians were well aware that something was amiss and the man who failed to extricate himself from the Stewards’ dragnet was M. Krishna atop Ocean Dancer. His lack of initiative and effort has resulted in him being suspended for over a year. His license has been withdrawn from March 1, 2011 and stands disqualified till April 30, 2012. Alford opened his account with a brilliant ride on Bath-trained Glorious Knight (Glory Of Dancer – Jukebox). The seven-year-old took the 5-kg mandatory penalty in his stride with some punishing effort from the saddle.

It looked as if Highland Prince (another mid-week winner with the statutory penalty) might pull it off but Parmar failed to maintain a straight course. As a result the ever-opportunistic Alford grabbed the passage along the rails. Hard ridden, Glorious Knight spared half-a-length to his rival at the wire. Barring Flirting Eye, the rest were never really in it. Chios once again failed to justify favouritism in the seven-furlong race for the Mayor’s Cup.

Top-weight Arktouros (Diffident-Girl From Ipanema) was taken by Alford to the helm of affairs from the word ‘go’ and shook off the persistent Recardo at the top of the straight. Prakash did go flat out on Chios in the straight but Arktouros refused to relent. He ultimately won in a record time of 1 min 24.71 sec. This was the horse which gave Christopher his 1000th winner last monsoon and he has gone on record as saying it’s one of his favourite horses. Alford rode his third winner Poles Apart (Black Cash – Winning Spurs) in the CROS Cup run over six furlongs. The Javed Khan-trained colt was taken to the front after the bend. Just when it seemed that Knight Of The Realm might pose him a problem, Alford ensured that his mount made that extra effort to stay ahead of his nearest rival.

Vijay Singh, who led in Arktouros, completed a double with Twice Over (Perigee Moon-Longmom), who lifted the Bookmakers’ Association Cup. Vacheron set a good pace over the seven-furlong trip before folding up. Once Alford showed Twice Over daylight, the race was as good as over. If handled a little more competently, Spanish Sahara would have surely placed. The Governor’s Cup saw the two top-weights Silver Fox and Raghuvansh attracting the bulk of the support.

However, it was the form horse Caravaggio (Razeen-Priceless) who pulled off a fine back-to-back triumph. Jockey Shailesh Shinde rode the Bharath Singh ward with great aplomb and broke the stranglehold that C. Alford had on the afternoon’s proceedings. Triunfo set a good pace till the distance post and seems more comfortable over seven furlongs. Furthermore, by limiting the top-weight to 60 kg, the bottom weights were out of the scale by 1.5 kg. The disappointment in the race was Our Little Savage whose in-and-out runs have been bewildering to say the least.