The enduring charm of the Bangalore Derby

  

Imtiaz Sait: Fifty Years Young, Still Setting the Pace

 

By Sharan Kumar

 

Fifty years in racing is usually enough to exhaust ambition, patience and, occasionally, owners. Not so with Imtiaz A. Sait. Still striding through the Mumbai paddock with purpose, he has turned longevity into an art form. Champion trainer over 18 times, mentor to champions and custodian of old-school values, Imtiaz has outlasted trends, rivals and racing’s shifting sands, while continuing to send out winners with unfailing regularity.

 

Mumbai has seen many champions; few have stayed long enough to become part of the furniture without ever gathering dust. Imtiaz did exactly that. His winners came in an era when numbers mattered, when every victory had to be earned the hard way, not plucked from a well-watered orchard of patronage.

 

He trained champions by the dozen, but Exhilaration remains the headline act, a colt who delivered both the Indian Derby and the Invitation Cup, and in the process handed Dr M A M Ramaswamy his long-awaited Derby success. The good doctor, having finally cracked the code in partnership with the Poonawallas after waiting more than two decades for that first success, went on to make a habit of winning, but that first taste owed much to Imtiaz’s patient craft.

 

Patience, in fact, has been his signature move in a profession that often confuses urgency with ability. Imtiaz never believed in hurrying a horse. In his book, the horse decides when the bell tolls, the trainer merely ensures it is ready to answer. It is an old-school philosophy, but then old-school is often another way of saying “it works.”

 

Affable to a fault in an arena that can resemble a polite version of a knife fight, Imtiaz managed what many consider impossible: he kept owners loyal. In a world where allegiance can vanish faster than odds-on favourites in the straight, he held his flock together with results, honesty and an easy warmth that made even defeat digestible.

 

The landscape has changed, of course. These days, a handful of trainers seem to have cornered the aristocracy of ownership, leaving others to compete with slimmer ammunition. Imtiaz, with a few health hiccups thrown in for good measure, has simply carried on, season after season, like a veteran campaigner who knows only one pace: forward.

 

His Bangalore excursions were never sightseeing detours. Pronto Pronto delivered the elusive Bangalore Derby in his home city, while Saddle Up ensured he signed off in winter Derby style before going on to advertise his class internationally. Back in Mumbai, Charon, Exhilaration and Super Brave brought him Invitation Cup glory, each success bearing the unmistakable imprint of his measured, unhurried handling.

 

Off the track, he remains what he has always been: approachable, sharp, and brisk in both walk and word. Keeping pace with him on his racecourse rounds is a test of fitness; keeping pace with his mind, an even sterner examination. Conversations with him are part racing seminar, part friendly audit, often ending with a quiet enquiry about where his horses figure in the speed ratings.

 

In a sport governed more by instinct than administration, Imtiaz A. Sait, IAS by initials if not by designation, has long run his stable with the calm authority of the finest Indian Administrative Service officer, only his files have four legs and opinions of their own.

 

Behind the scenes, strength has come from a supportive family, with his wife and daughter standing firmly alongside. It is a network of encouragement that has sustained a career spanning five decades, 2200 winners and over 150 classics and graded races.

 

At 76, Imtiaz Sait remains as agile in thought as he is in stride, still spending long hours in the stable, still reading the game as if it were a fresh puzzle each morning. That, perhaps, is his greatest strength. As he often says, racing is an ocean, and even after half a century, he is still learning to swim better.

 

In an age that celebrates the new, it is worth pausing to applaud the enduring. Imtiaz has not merely kept pace with change; he has quietly adapted, evolved and competed with a new generation armed with advantages he never had.

 

Fifty years on, the verdict is clear. Some train horses; a rare few shape the game itself. Imtiaz A. Sait remains firmly among the latter, still adding new chapters to a story that refuses to grow old.