Trainer Bharath Singh’s brilliant charge, Agnostic (Travor Patel-up), continues to dominate the RCTC home ground. On Saturday, the four-year-old easily claimed the prestigious Mayfowl Cup, over 1,400m, taking his in-a-row winning tally to five. The afternoon otherwise was in a vice like grip of the trainer-jockey combinations of Vijay Singh and Suraj Narredu who notched up a popular treble through Southern Lad, Leonardo and Monteverdi.

Agnostic raced in his trademark style – well off the pace – as speed merchants like Mystic Bay (P. Tajeshwar), The Protector (Anthony Raj) and Soaring High (Dashrath Singh) dominated the early running, leaving the fancied runners -- Jake (Suraj), Tigrio (Akshay Kumar), Awesome One (Neeraj Rawal) and the even-money favourite Agnostic -- in a their pursuit. Honestly, a wide rail-side opening made the task of Agnostic that much easier. The Top Class son was quick to slip through and was at the helm 300m from home. Awesome One, too, followed the Agnostic-route to displace Mystic Bay from the paying slot. Had he not experimented with a brief adventure and continued to follow such route, the aging horse could have placed closer to the winner

The Vijay-Suraj made an early start. In the 1,100m Romantic Zeal Handicap which was an easy pick for Southern Lad. The much improved Be Safe son was right at the task from the start. Allowing the back-to-back winner Lightinthesky (Dashrath) the early advantage, Suraj shock off the even-money favourite, passing the distance-post to score easily over trainer Javed Khan’s fancied runner, Dr. Doom (Anthony Raj) who was ridden in a check on this occasion. Anyway, Southern Lad is capable of winning again.

All eyes were on Vijay’s Classic pair of Leonardo and Montiverdi in their respective events – 1,200m Aboline Handicap and 1,400m Regal Star Handicap. Leonardo was in trouble, shut out for a galloping room mid-way in the home straight. However, Suraj’s timely effort to come out of the mess, saved the day and, the stronger finisher he is, just about managed to stump Javed Khan’s Devushka (Anthony Raj) at the post.

Montiverdi, on the other hand, found things going his way. The Roderic O’Connor son allowed Bharath’s Mezcal (Trevor) to call the shot but quickened 300m from home for a walk in the park.

The two less fancied runner who also dominated were trainer Aashay doctor’s Cape Tanaros (Tajeshwar) in the 1,200m Winter Renaissance Handicap and Vikash Jaiswal’s Script (Md Imran) in the 1,400m Sound of Cheers Handicap. Cape Tanaros victory hardly came as a shock in view of the colt’s recent mock races and the subsequent handlings of jockeys while for Script’s cause, it was manna from heaven after two potential favourites, Yazd (Hindu Singh) and Prosperous Prince (S. Paswan) were declared non-starters.