Full Moon spotted a day earlier (5th day of Pune) - By Shiven Surendranath
Posted on - 13 Aug 2014
Full Moon spotted a day earlier (5th day of Pune)
By Shiven Surendranath
It was in the November of 1972 that the movie “GomtiKeKinare”hit the screens all over India. Those with a memory and an ear for popular music might remember the legendary duo of AshaBhosle and Manna Dey belting out the song “Jackpot Lag Gaya”.
With 7038 winning Jackpot tickets for the combined pools on the 5th day of the Pune racing season, one can’t help but think that if that song were to be remixed today, the Pune race course would have been the prefect place to find the chorus.
Barring Angeling, well backed horses won with such ridiculous ease that taking money from one’s turf accountant was like taking candy from a diabetic toddler, it was almost like you were doing him a favour.
The day began with Copperglow opening as the favourite at evens. It was clear that the bookmakers had not accounted for a Cartel at work as a betting coup unfolded in their ring.
Light of Arabia led the field with Cartel sitting a handy second. Copperglow always looked to be an uncomfortable third.
It was only a matter of time before Light Of Arabia extinguished itself and the bosses of the Cartel started discussing the prospects of distributing the booty, this happened around the 700.
Cartel was way out of class in this field and won with a lot more than money in hand.
Whywhywhy is the name of the sire of Hot Pepper, what no one could tell however was whywhywhy Hot Pepper had become the favourite in the second. “Information” on its own is useless unless processed to become knowledge but even the most powerful processor, with Intel inside, could not have concluded that Hot Pepper should be the number one choice pre race.
Brown Dynamite and Star Prince tore away from the field to make sure that they had no chance in the race. Hot Pepper sat third with Midnight Run always a handy fourth. Midnight Run, who had every credential to win, accelerated just before the bend to finally win by an easy five lengths from Hot Pepper. The verdict was apt testimony to the gap between having information and having knowledge.
Capilano had class 3 form and was intelligently entered in the third race of the day, a class 4 reserved for small owners.
His easy victory, sitting second behind Burgundy Rose and then going away in the last 200, gave jockey turned trainer C. Rajendra back to back winners over the previous weekend and this.
Rajendra rode honest races as a jockey and has carried that rare trait into his training. The lack of owner support for him as compared to his contemporaries, Pesi, Prakash and Mallesh is unfortunate.
While on Mallesh, so good has his change of occupation been that he just can’t seem to do any wrong since becoming a trainer.This confidence is possibly what encouraged him to take on Tatiana with Delightful Lady in the fourth, even though his filly had only won a class five race while Tatiana had finished 3rd in the Fillies in her last run.
In what turned out to be a one horse race, Tatiana, named after her co owners yatch in the Mediterranean, came from behind to run away from Delightful Lady about 350 from home.
Question: What’s the difference between a Pineapple and a Lucky Pineapple ?
Answer: You’ll never see a Pineapple prance about on it’s toes.
Lucky Pineapple was a winner in the paddock and next a winner past the post. He got a bit of a scare from the well bred English Lass in the straight, but Lucky Pineapple had too much juice for his competitors and squeezed out an easy victory.
English Lass is out of English Channel, whose progeny have had some success in the Bangalore season currently underway.
English Channel’s full brother Sedgfield stands as a stallion at the Jai Govind Stud and Agricultural Farm, Jaipur.
The Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina is known to have crashed a couple of times in the last few years. While a crashing glacier is a once in a lifetime experience for fortunate tourists, punters in Pune who saw Peritomoreno crashing in the sixth wouldn’t exactly have counted themselves as fortunate.
Peritomoreno and Dreamland led the pack into the straight. Peritomoreno then helped Dreamland by first blocking Warrior Prince who was moving well along the rails and then by packing up himself.
The “Dreamland-Yash-Faisal” combo scored a quick double for themselves for the season.
Warrior Prince, who ran at 60-1, is to be noted, his interference was worse than the race day report suggests. Also if pre race reports are to be believed, Peritomoreno is just “here and here” and one shouldn’t expect a dramatic improvement in its next run.
Pune’s date with the Full Moon was meant to be on the next day at 11:04:21 p.m. However, the gentlemen who spend their days in dark rooms studiously studying lunar charts had their date wrong.
A Full Moon shined brightin all its resplendent glory, at 4:30:59.90 p.m. ,on the 9th of August 2014, a whole day earlier than predicted.
As he went past the post Full Moon became the first horse to break the one minute barrier, over 1000 meters,in the current season while going start to finish.
In the eighth Illidan refused to jump, for the second time in two starts. Should he persist with this stupidity his trainer should consider sitting outside Illidan’s barn and reading out Leena Almashat’s wisdom to him.The lady once wrote :“Those who don’t jump will never fly”.
If Illidan has any horse sense and can understand English he will soar to giddy heights.
While Illidan can claim moral victory in the race for coming a creditable 2nd after losing a distance at the start, no one can take away from Angeling’s victory who sat well up with the field and went away quite easily from Frankenella to give her sporting owner Geoffery Nagpal some cheer after Copperglow’s loss in the first.
Pepe Senior, Mountain Queen and Desert Wings ran 1-2-3 for most of the last race. Superlicious sat behind Oriental Rocky who was running in and around fourth position.
For a moment in the straight it seemed that the Queen, on whom there was a King sized place gamble, might even win but she fizzled out just as Superlicious put up a good run along the rails to win quite easily and wrap up the days proceedings.
(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are the author's personal views.)
