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Trainer Arti Doctor`s trustworthy galloper, Third Avenue (P. Tajeshwar-up), scored yet again, and with authority, on Sunday, the New Year`s Day, to claim the WWW777 RCTC Gold Vase at the Calcutta race ground. Having already bagged a promising treble, and winning seven races from his career`s nine starts, the five-year-old`s fourth victory in a-a-row hardly came as a surprise. The Amperre-Avant Garde son put in his foot forward with a late run, his customary style, to make look a well-performed opposition to shade. Trainer Aashay Doctor`s Stockbridge (Neeraj Rawal) was best of the rest amongst the beaten lots but not before advertising that the removal of ‘blinkers` have done the Speaking of Which son a world of good as he handed the weight and a thorough beating to the third placed 5/4 favourite Oasis, ridden by Suraj Narredu.
Actions were aplenty in New Year`s seven-event card that was wholly sponsored by WWW777. The open-betting fields in almost the entire card provided ample opportunities to satchel-men to juggle with odds but the money-power invariably found favours in wrong ones. Anyway, The rich and prestigious Indian Produce Stakes, over 1,200m was another one in which favourites performed poorly. Trainer Aashay Doctor`s neglected in the betting filly, Meropi (Neeraj) took her six rivals by a complete surprise but all and sundries, also the large New Year`s crowd was appreciative about her impressive turn of foot. She was in fifth till turning for home, as Vijay`s fancied pair, Kind Of Magic (Suraj) and Contribute(A. Sandesh) raced ahead of Bharath Singh`s 2/1 favourite, Ramiel (Trevor Patel) . However, Inside the last furlong as King Of Magic was just about shaping like a winner, there came the winner with raking strides to score easily.
The afternoon also witnessed trainer Javed Khan`s Hellblazer (Imran Chisty) having measure of the western India based craftsman`s, Imtiaz Sait`s Full Of Grace (Trevor) in the Seven Furlongs Handicap. The two horses had their own stories to tell; Hellblazer had all the luck with a wide opening, almost from the wrong-end of the field while Full Of Grace – following a similar course, needed to change the course twice to find a galloping room. The verdict between to the two was barely a length.
Trevor, however, made a promising start, on the 3/1 fancied -- newly acquired from western India horse -- Summer Night, in the 1,600m Happy 2023 Handicap. It was a smooth start -to-finish effort in the curtain-raiser and the large holiday crowd took things granted for rest of the day.
The myth was burst an hour later when trainer Shyam Habbu`s friendless runner, Sun God (app Hasib Alam) decided to put his foot forward in the 1.400m WWW777 Handicap, to beat the other two long-priced runners – Shivalik Silk (Vinay Jaiswal) and Thalames (Neeraj).
Trainer Christopher Alford has been going through a bad phase but in Mandolin`s (Tajeshwar) the jockey-turned-trainer got a confidence booster. The 8/1 chance was, however, hard-pressed to beat trainer Patrick Quinn`s Divine Hunt (app Likhit Appu) .
Some solace was provided to punters and visitors, too, by an easy victory of Vijay`s in-form filly Regency Smile in the 1,200m Dash To The Line Handicap. It was another matter that Regency Smile went to the start as a 5/2 chance as wagering went in the direction of another western India`s new import, Agostino Carracci (B.R. Kumar), from trainer B. Mahesh`s stable. It will be an understatement to say that Regency Smile won the race! She won handsomely from Sait`s Pisa and Quinn`s Dreams.
CALCUTTA DERBY UPDATES: Trainer Patrick Quinn, who has been going through a rough patch during the last fortnight, got another jolt when his January 8 Calcutta Derby favourite, Imperial Power, returned bleeding during his Monday morning workouts. Imperial Power is the winner of the Calcutta 2000 Guineas.
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