Irish Gold wins feature; jockey Sandesh rides four winners

Jockey A Sandesh driving Irish Gold past the post on Thursday at Mahalaxmi ahead Portofino Bay (N Bhosale up) to win the Mathradas Goculdas Trophy. (Pic: RWITC)

Irish Gold decisively won the Class I, Mathradas Goculdas Trophy, the feature event of Thursday's seven-race Mahalaxmi card. Jockey A Sandesh, who rode Irish Gold to victory, dazzled with his saddle skills, booting home four winners on the card.

The top two market choices for the feature event--Irish Gold and Portofino Bay--were both trained by Dallas Todywalla. N Bhosale astride Portofino Bay hit the front as the starter flagged them off, being stalked all the time by the half-money favourite Irish Gold. After a brief tussle in the homestretch, Irish Gold dashed ahead when Sandesh asked for an effort.

In the opening race of the day, the Pradeep Vijaykar Plate (Class IV; 1800m), Ataturk with Vivek G in saddle received strong support, but could not make any impression at any stage of the race. By contrast, jockey Sandesh astride the Karthik-trained Kimiko settled the six-year-old mare comfortably in mid-bunch and did not waste time in making his move immediately after turning for home. Kimiko soon swept past the front runners to assume command even as Nostalgia (Neeraj Rawal up) could not get a clear run at a crucial stage of the race, but emerged ahead of the rest to take up the runner up spot.

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Sandesh's third winning ride was on Charlie (trained by Vinesh) who humbled Pride's Prince (Neeraj Rawal up) in the Aziz H Ahmedbhoy Trophy (Class II; 1600m), after the latter, quite uncharacteristically, chose to stalk the pace this time, instead of his usual come-from-behind style of running which had earned him a cent percent strike rate in all the three mile races he had won at Pune.

Sandesh then fought a losing battle astride Jackson in the Nadia Mary Homi Wadia Trophy for maiden three-year-old horses when he could not sustain his lead against the onslaught of Johnny Mac (Vivek G up) trained by Hosidar Daji.

However, in the next race, the upper division of the Royal Barbershop Trophy, Sandesh registered his fourth success of the day by giving a vigorous ride to Art Collector who had to be stretched to the limit to overpower the runaway leader Esperanza (P Vinod up) in the last 50 meters. Art Collector was trained by Aman Hussain.

In the lower division of the Royal Barbershop Trophy, the shortest-priced runner on the card, Mila (Vivek G up), bit the dust at the hands of the least fancied runner in the fray: ten-year-old Jetfire! The favorite was leading all the way before coming under pressure and running all over the place, causing interference to the SS Shah-trained Jetfire whom jockey PP Dhebe kept urging. Dhebe's persistence paid off, and Jetfire scored the fifth victory of his life in 58th start, paying Rs 175 for a tener.

A superb--and commendable (because that is what makes horse racing a really thrilling game!)--gamble was pulled off by trainer Faisal Abbas with Little Minister in the last race of the day, the A Geddis Plate. A long shot in the overnight odds, Little Minister tons of smart money to become a clear second favourite at 5-to-1 when the starter put the flag down, and the well-prepared horse won with such authority jockey Amyn Merchant could afford to repeatedly look back over his shoulders to make sure no rival was was in sight.