The enduring charm of the Bangalore Derby

 Margaretta Springs the Multi Million Surprise

 

By Sharan Kumar

 

The Poonawalla Breeders’ Multi Million is not so much a horse race as it is an annual ambush. Form students arrive armed with statistics, sectional timings, stable whispers and moral certainty. They leave clutching torn tickets and philosophical debates about destiny, probability and why they ever trusted “good things.”

 

Much against market expectations and the confident murmur of turf talk, rank outsider Margaretta from the yard of Pesi Shroff upended every neat calculation to emerge an easy winner on Sunday. The betting boards had not exactly rolled out a red carpet for her. Yet when the moment arrived, she treated the opposition with brisk efficiency and the crowd with a lesson in humility.

 

Seasoned racegoers stood momentarily shell shocked, their expressions hovering between disbelief and reluctant admiration. First timers, blissfully unburdened by pre race theories, simply enjoyed the theatre. To them, it was racing at its most intoxicating. To the veterans, it was another reminder that this race relishes rewriting reputations.

 

The script of the PBMM refuses to be written. It drafts itself, usually in invisible ink, and reveals the final page only after the winning post has been passed. Year after year, it has specialised in turning outstanding prospects into supporting actors and promoting the understudy from the shadows to centre stage. If racing had a sense of irony, this race would be its calling card.

 

Trainer Pesi Shroff has won this prize often enough to require a separate shelf. Yet even he might have permitted himself a raised eyebrow at the manner in which Margaretta dismantled expectations. She did not just win. She won with the composure of a filly who had read the pre race assessments and filed them away for future amusement.

 

On the other side stood Buckingham, trained by Karthik Ganapathy, unbeaten in two starts and presented as the logical conclusion of the afternoon. The firm favourite. The banker. The sensible investment. The sort of horse that makes punters feel prudent. Logic, however, is frequently unwelcome at the Multi Million.

 

Margaretta was not the popular choice among the enthusiastic brigade. A few loyalists may have ticked her name simply because she carried the Shroff insignia and because the master handler had fielded only one runner, a relative rarity given his depth of ammunition. But largely, she drifted in conversation if not dramatically in the ring.

 

Jockey Vivek G had her settled well off the pace, tucked away in the rear as Lady Scarlet cut out the running with admirable boldness. Lady Scarlet, a full sister to the multiple graded winner and sprinting sensation Time And Tide, did much that was right. She led, she travelled, she attempted to stretch the field. For a while, the race appeared willing to obey conventional wisdom.

 

Turning for home, Vivek found spaces on the inside and she sliced through the field with clinical precision. By the final 100 metres she had swept past the hopefuls and the hyped, and as she surged clear of Scarlet Lady, Vivek G had the luxury of glancing sideways, perhaps to confirm that the pre race favourites were indeed where the market had left them.

 

Heavily backed Buckingham did not quite deliver the expected progression. He ran honestly but without the surge required to dominate this company, eventually finishing third after being nosed out of second by Invictor. Respectable, yes. Triumphant, no. The Multi Million has little patience for respectability.

 

Not that everything is lost for Buckingham. He shapes as a colt who will mature into a good performer over extended trips, where stamina rather than precocity determines the pecking order. Sunday may not have been his coronation, but it need not be his verdict.

 

What makes this race such fertile ground for upheaval is the stage of development of its contenders. These are young horses, still in the workshop phase of their careers. Their ceilings remain untested, their limitations not fully exposed. In such company, improvement is currency and sudden improvement is gold.

 

Margaretta had won 49 days earlier and thereafter kept a low profile. Her two February workouts were routine on paper. Nothing in them hinted at a performance of this magnitude. Even allowing for the power of her stable, the scale of her progress could not have been confidently priced in.

 

That is precisely the charm and the cruelty of the Multi Million. It is less about what has been advertised and more about what is waiting, quietly, to be unveiled.

 

The beaten horses largely ran to their perceived level. Margaretta simply redefined it.

 

The Poonawalla family ensured that the race day carried more than just prize money. It carried polish, presence and a sense of occasion. The lawns had a certain sparkle, the stands a festive hum, and the programme the kind of competitive depth that keeps both owners and punters properly engaged.

 

Full credit must go to Zavaray Poonawalla, whose generosity in sponsoring multiple races elevated the afternoon from routine fixture to celebration. It is one thing to fund a feature. It is quite another to invest in the entire canvas so that every race feels meaningful. The result was a card where competition was keen, stakes were worthy and the sport, for a day at least, wore its finest attire with confidence.