In a thrilling last-to-first gallop, Dr Cyrus Poonawalla's Ahead Of My Time swept past the field to bag the Betway Indian 2000 Guineas (Gr 1), the prime event of Sunday's eight-race card. The three-year-old bay colt by Excellent Art out of Miss Danehill, trained by Dallas Todywalla, was given an incredible ride by jockey A Sandesh. The ace jockey won three more races, one of them for the same trainer (Todywalla), to emerge as Sunday's star professional.
Son Of A Gun (CS Jodha up) set a scorching pace for the second Classic of the Mumbai campaign, clocking slightly under a minute for the first 1000m, enjoying a runaway lead over Phenom, Coeur De Lion and the favourite Supernatural (P Trevor up), with Ahead Of My Time & Sandesh racing detached last, about a dozen lengths away from the leader.
"Dallas sir (trainer Todywalla) was very confident Ahead Of My Time can win," Sandesh told mid-day in an exclusive chat after the race, "but he told me this would be a very fast race, so I should not cut pace with anyone. In fact, he insisted I must settle the horse at the back of the field."
Sandesh further added, "(Owner Cyrus) Poonawalla sir told me not to worry, and said he would be happy if we finished even third or fourth--that really eased my mind."
"Our plan was to save as much ground as possible, so I stuck to the inner rails," the winning jockey continued, "and when I saw a gap developing approaching midway in the homestretch, I immediately went for it. The horse did the rest--all credit (goes) to the horse and the trainer."
Courtesy: mid-day
