Opus Dei Wins While Punters Struggle with the Puzzle By Sharan Kumar Imtiaz Sait trained Opus Dei , a serial offender in the art of finding the winning post a fraction too late, finally discovered that races do not end at the 1400-metre marker. Stepped up to a mile, he made the 1600 metres Kailashpat Singhania Trophy look like a private gallop, strolling home with disdainful ease in Wednesday’s Mumbai feature for horses rated 60 to 86. Punters, meanwhile, were wrestling with the familiar Pesi Shroff riddle , a betting crossword where two answers look correct and a third still ruins your day. The heavily backed Eagle Day and the less fashionable Chagall were expected to settle matters. Naturally, neither did. To complete the lesson, Singer Sargent , briefly recalling his youth, nosed out Eagle Day for second, ensuring that even those who got close went home empty-handed. Chagall went hard, led bravely and held on till the fin...
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The Appeal That Wasn’t Filed By Sharan Kumar Racing has an enduring faith in process, particularly when process arrives ahead of thought. When a beaten favourite demands an explanation, judgement tends to outrun evidence. Suspensions are imposed, order is restored, and the system moves on, satisfied that action has been taken. What follows, when the horse itself later supplies the explanation, is a chapter racing prefers not to reopen. The story usually begins with a mock race. A sanitised exercise, free of pressure, rivals, or consequence. No reason for the horse to betray inconvenient weaknesses such as an inability to breathe when challenged. The horse impresses, the clock nods, and expectation does the rest. Race day is less forgiving. Crowded and pressured, the favourite suddenly discovers the limits of its airway. The jockey adjusts, exchanging ambition for realism. The crowd does not. An enquiry is inevitable. ...
Matheran: Cradle of India’s Jockeys By Adil Ghandy Matheran does not announce itself with trumpets. It rises quietly, a green shoulder of the Sahyadris, wrapped in forest, mist, and an old-world courtesy that refuses engines and impatience. No cars honk here, no bicycles rush past. You arrive on foot, or swaying gently on a pony, the way travellers have for generations. And somewhere between those red mud paths and the slow rhythm of hooves, Indian horse racing found one of its purest nurseries. Tourism in Matheran has always leaned on horses the way vines lean on old stone. Nearly 400 ponies work the hill every day, carrying visitors along shaded trails, to viewpoints where the valleys fall away like a held breath finally released. For many visitors, it is a joy ride. For the local youngsters, it is an apprenticeship in instinct. Boys grow up riding bareback, hands light, balance learned before fear. Horse and rider k...
Miss American Pie Finally Savours Mumbai Success By Sharan Kumar Miss American Pie finally decided Mumbai was not a forbidden city. The six-year-old mare ended her long-running local boycott by narrowly holding off a late-lunging Market King to land the 1200 metres Mulraj Goculdas Trophy , the Sunday showpiece for horses rated 80 and above. For the record, this was not her maiden win as some may be tempted to believe after years of frustration. She had already won seven races from 16 starts. The only catch was that none of them had come on the Mumbai track, where the long straight has a habit of exposing front-runners with overconfidence and limited oxygen. Enter visiting English jockey David Allan , rode the mare in restraint, instead of pressing the accelerator from the word go. He waited. He stalked. He produced her late. The daughter of Gleneagles responded with interest, cruising past Dream Seller in the straigh...
Glanders, Testing and the Question of Proportion By Sharan Kumar The suspension of racing at several centres following glanders-related concerns has unsettled administrators, trainers, stud farm owners and racing followers alike. Glanders is a serious disease and unquestionably demands caution. Yet recent developments raise a fundamental question: are decisions being guided by complete medical evidence, or by fear generated by test results that may not tell the whole story? Unease deepened when horses from closed, biosecure stud farms with no known history of exposure began returning positive blood test results, with no clear epidemiological links to explain the findings. Matters were further complicated when the National Horse Breeding Society of India (NHBSI) sought a temporary suspension of testing, citing concerns over testing protocols and interpretation. Alarm increased as repeat samples were sought from several stud farms near Pu...
Is Indian Horse Racing Losing Its Social Relevance? By Sharan Kumar Horse racing rarely collapses in a single moment. It fades, quietly and almost politely, until one day it no longer commands public sympathy, political protection or cultural relevance. By the time the gates finally close, the outcome appears sudden, but the process has usually been long and visible to anyone willing to look. The troubling question for Indian racing today is not whether races will continue next season, but whether the sport is steadily losing the social legitimacy that allows it to exist at all. Racing survives only so long as the public believes in the integrity of the contest. When that belief weakens, everything else follows. Attendance thins, serious punters disengage, owners recalibrate motives, and administrators retreat into procedural defensiveness. The sport continues on paper, but its pulse weakens. Eroding Trust and the Betting Par...
Pongal Without a Derby: The Silence That Fell on Guindy By Sharan Kumar Pongal Day at Guindy was once measured not by calendars but by cadence. The rhythm of hooves, the flash of silks, the anticipation that rose steadily towards the South India Derby, the crown jewel of Chennai racing. For generations, that day announced itself with noise, colour and certainty. Pongal was never a single date but a festival that stretched across days, a harvest celebration marked by government holidays and a city collectively at ease. The Derby was woven into those celebrations, as much a part of Pongal as tradition itself. This year, Pongal arrived to an unsettling stillness. Not for racing anymore. The Madras Race Club racecourse at Guindy lay mute, its vastness echoing only absence. Where celebration once galloped, there is now only silence. Racing in Chennai was not a pastime. It was part of the city’s bloodstream for well over a century, shaped by eras when Indian traine...
Fynbos Roars Back, Baychimo Ticks All the Marks By Sharan Kumar Fynbos won the Gr 1 Villoo C Poonawalla Indian Oaks on Saturday, steamrolling the opposition with such casual disdain that it left one wondering where this version had been hiding during her Indian 1000 Guineas run. For trainer Pesi Shroff, however, it was another day at the office. The Oaks has become his personal hobby, and this was win number fourteen, further reinforcing the notion that the race is less a public contest and more a private estate, complete with a velvet rope. Armed with a formidable arsenal of talent and the training acumen to deploy it, Shroff has long treated the Oaks as a leisurely stroll rather than a battlefield. Yet, as the applause echoed and the stopwatch flashed a sharp 2:29.343, an inconvenient question refused to be silenced. Where exactly was this Fynbos in the Indian 1000 Guineas, where she couldn’t beat a field best described as polite rather than formidable? Trevor Pat...
Arrived Delivers, Pushing Jodha Firmly into the Limelight By Sharan Kumar Adhirajsingh Jodha’s rise is beginning to look less like promise and more like permanence. Fresh from Guineas glory, the emerging trainer struck again on Indian racing’s grandest eastern stage by landing the Gr 1 Calcutta Derby, underlining that big races are fast becoming a habit rather than an exception. No longer knocking on the door of big-time racing, Jodha has stepped in and begun rearranging the furniture. After the Indian 2000 Guineas with Baychimo, he followed it up with the Ramnarain Ruia Trophy on Saturday, moving steadily closer to the summit every Indian trainer secretly bookmarks: the Indian Derby. For Jodha and a buoyant band of owners, this was not just another win, but a shared dream gathering serious momentum. As if one marquee success was too modest a statement, Jodha went a step further by capturing the Gr 1 Calcutta Derby Stakes with Arrived, the crown jewel of the Kolkata...
Outlasting Urs: When Longevity Became the Only Achievement By Sharan Kumar Siddaramaiah has finally done it. He has overtaken Devaraj Urs as Karnataka’s longest-serving Chief Minister. History has been updated. Context, unfortunately, has not. Beyond the stopwatch, the comparison collapses like cheap scaffolding. Devaraj Urs was a towering reformist, a leader with aura, conviction and a genuine legacy of social transformation. He reshaped Karnataka’s political landscape, uplifted marginalised communities and carried himself with a natural authority that did not need daily reminders. His politics had spine, substance and style. Siddaramaiah, by contrast, has mastered the fine art of survival. His ascent to the top office reads less like a movement and more like a manual on political manoeuvring. Projected as a tall backward-class leader, he has ensured with remarkable consistency that no other leader from his own Kuruba community ever grows tall enough...