No ordinary Derby. Its the 75th - By Shiven Surendranath | DNA
Posted on - 03 Feb 2017
No ordinary Derby. Its the 75th
By Shiven Surendranath
DNA
Many of those spotted at Mahalaxmi on Sunday would have spent the better half of their morning looking good for the latter half of the day.
Ladies in pretty dresses with elaborate hats and Gentlemen in perfectly tailored suits with flashy pocket squares collect with unfailing regularity for this annual soirée to celebrate the coronation of the new King of the Indian turf. Their eyes, protected from the winter sun by Messrs Tom Ford and such others, look searchingly for the face of a familiar insider, the one person who could answer the question that's not just on their minds but on the minds of all the 30,000 other racing aficionados in attendance that afternoon:
"What's good in the Derby?"
This year, however, they won't get their answer. Not even from the insider. In this historic 75th running of the Indian Derby, the 14 runners are so evenly matched that if anyone risked opening his mouth to tip the winner, he would also risk finding either one of his two well polished shoes in it after the race. Possibly both.
For this Ice Glacier is to blame. The champion filly and 2017 Indian Derby favourite pulled up lame a little over a week ago throwing the field wide open.
In a recent interview the ante post Derby favourite, Serjeant At Arms' owner, KND, as Khushroo Dhunjibhoy is popularly known, stated that The Serjeant's pedigree may be a hindrance to him staying the Derby trip. He further went on to muddy the waters by saying that his other runner, Mrs.Patmore's would probably stay better! Clearly giving the Mrs. the edge over the Mr.
But will Mrs.Patmore stay? Not everyone is convinced, as the Indian Oaks was a slow run race and Mrs.P still struggled. Further, will her new saddle partner, Louis Bouzellin, know her or the Mahalaxmi track as well as her regular pilot Trevor did?
KND is not the only one who feels he has a shot at winning the Derby. The young and dapper Tegbir Brar, owner of Hall of Famer, is all set to fly in from Punjab on Derby morning. What he thinks of his chances are best nuanced by the fact that he is leaving the campaign trail of his mother in Sri Muktsar Saheb, where she is the sitting MLA, to be at the races.
For followers of form, Hall Of Famer would have been the automatic pick, what with her having beaten Silver Beauty by 8 lenghts in the Calcutta Derby and Temerity and Mrs.Patmore beating Silver Beauty in the Oaks by just 2/14 lengths and a neck respectively.But it would take a sudden and severe attack of amnesia to forget that Mrs.Patmore beat Hall of Famer in the Indian 1000 Guineas coming from behind.
What then of Temerity, running in the famous dark blue silks of Shyam Ruia, who overtook Mrs. Patmore only two weeks ago to win the Indian oaks? She definitely seems to have a sixth gear compared to Mrs.Patmore's five and then of course Mrs.Sheetal Shinde's Silver Beauty, who has to be fancying her chances for an upset victory if she is paying a second final entry in two weeks to run after paying a final entry in the Oaks.
If five runners with muddled form staking claim to the crown were not enough, Shapoor Mistry has decided to fly in none other than Colom O'Donoghue to pilot Lucas making the already muddled scene 'muddlier'.
While the other runners seem to have less of a chance than those mentioned above, the hope that dame luck will smile down at one them is always a possibility.
So what then should you play if you had to have a bet? Well, there is an old racing adage which says that when there are two grey horses in a race one of them will win. There are two greys in this Indian Derby, be there and choose one.
—The writer is a horse racing expert
