King`s Ransom, trained by Pesi Shroff, produced an incredible gallop in the homestretch of the Mahalaxmi racetrack to leave her rivals stunned in the Betway Indian 1000 Guineas (Gr 1), the feature event of Sunday`s bumper ten-race card. The Multidimensional – China Creek three-year-old filly, bred at Ms Ameeta Mehra`s Usha stud, is owned by Vijay Shirke and his family, in partnership with KN Dhunjibhoy, Keki D Mehta and Dara K Mehta. Jockey PS Chouhan rode King`s Ransom to victory.
Four of the eight fillies in the 1000 Guineas line up were saddled by trainer Pesi Shroff, King`s Ransom clearly being his main hope as she went to the post a piping-hot on-money favourite. The starter gave them a perfectly fair start, but one of the Shroff wards–Thunberg (C Umesh up)–who assumed command and clocked 14.10 seconds for the first 200m, suddenly stepped up pace, taking only 45.90 seconds for the next 800m. Negotiating the final turn, this sudden burst of speed put Thunberg six lengths ahead of Sierra Dela Plata (Neeraj Rawal up) who, in turn, was another half a dozen lengths ahead of the rest.
Gigantic strides
Sensing urgency, PS Chouhan alerted King`s Ransom, and so did CS Jodha astride her main rival, Dangerous. Both of them moved up fluently, but when Chouhan put King`s Ransom into top gear, it became clear Dangerous would not be able to keep up the chase. King`s Ransom then moved up with gigantic strides and whizzed past the stablemate leader Thunberg effortlessly, stopping the clock at 1m:36.894s.
Doubles galore
The trainer-jockey combination of Shroff and Chouhan ended the day with a double as they also won the upper division of the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy (VI Bart.) Trophy with Lazarus, a two-year-old bay colt by Admiralty out of Maisha, who made an impressive winning debut. Their performance was matched by the pair of trainer Narendra Lagad and apprentice jockey Mustakim Alam who won with Coeur De Lion & Daulat Mai. Two more doubles were also recorded on the day, by jockey Trevor Patel and trainer Imtiaz Sait. They teamed up to win the Mahalaxmi Sprint Million with Iron Age. Sait had already led in Truly Epic (Antony Raj up) earlier; and Trevor Patel followed up the success of Iron Age with a smashing victory astride Irish Gold (Roderic O`Connor – Irish Bailey) for trainer Dallas Todywalla.
