IT WAS was circa late 1980's, that the Poonawalla brothers — Cyrus and Zavaray — decided to give a huge leg up to Indian racing by supporting a breeder funded race for juveniles. The first running of the Poonawalla Million in 1990 or the PBM as it was known, spawned a multitude of millions targeted at the juveniles. The high blitz promotion, contest of skills, ladies in flowery hats, a la Ascot, backed by the passion and zeal of Zavaray, became its trademark, and replicated with great aplomb by the RWITC across multiple events.
The PBM addressed the void of the absence of a high stakes races before the classics and gave breeders an impetus in selling their stock with the lure of this race so early in a thoroughbred's career. Indeed the auction book with lots marked "Entered in the Poonawalla Million" was known to get vendors a premium on their sales: The race catapulted in stature as one of racing's most sought after prizes, achieving Grade 1 status within six years of inception. With the mushrooming of millions, the race needed a boost, and hence its transformation to the PBMM, with the word "multi" prefacing the "million". From just 10 lakhs in 1990, the race crossed the 1 cr mark in 2010, and the high of the Rs.1.83 crore purse in 2014 (won by Shivalik Storm) has slipped to Rs.1.38 crore coming Sunday. The attendance which once surged on the back of multiple promotional initiatives to come within sniffing distance of Derby Day fell to in the region of 8,000, the momentum difficult to sustain.
The only blip in its illustrious roll of honor is that not one of its 32 winners has won the Indian Derby and though Forest Fantasy (1997) and Autonomy (2008) won the Invitation, an Indian Derby win has proved to be elusive. Trainers usually run shy of such a stern test so early for their potential champions. The in-form stallion Multidimensional, who sired last year's winner Miracle, who followed in the heap of PBM winners, being unable to add the Indian Derby to her unbeaten run of eight, which ended in the Derby. A jinx?
I have long advocated a change in the funding of the race. If a stud does not "enter" a yearling months before the race, it cannot run as there is no provision of a "final" entry. This can/has pre-vented a top horse from taking part. In 2011 I had presented a paper on taking a leaf from the Breeders' Cup in the United States, and have a graded fee structure (depending on foals born/ nomination fees of stallions) for farms, which could form a sizeable corpus besides giving all foals of such farms an automatic entry. Further, being a "produce" race, the share of breeders to the Prize Pool must go up from an average of just about 10-15% , with the sponsor / owners contribution being the lions share.
The Poonawallas have done for the PBMM what Vijay Mallya did for the Indian Derby- upscale the race to iconic stature. They have been rewarded with their colors triumphing in four successive years from 2017 to 2020 with Ruffina, Corfe Castle, Missing You and Forest Flame, who together went on to win multiple group races, except the Indian Derby. This year they have a leading hope in Ahead of My Time, a full brother to Ruffina, who could well give them a fifth.
The Poonawallas backed by RWITC's new look Marketing team are doing everything in their arsenal to bathe the course (literally) in red and give the sport just the leg up it needs on Sunday.
(Vivek Jain is former chairman of rwitc)
