Denny Crane justifies favouritism

Pesi Shroff's Denny Crane, with Trevor Patel astride, made every furlong post of the 1200-meter trip a winning one as he made a successful start-to-finish bid to claim the Sir Charles Forbes Trophy, the feature event of Thursday's evening race card at Mahalaxmi. Owned by Mr & Mrs Mehernosh Deboo and Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, the Arazan - Blue Horizon four-year-old notched up his fourth win from the last five starts.

Trevor Patel got Denny Crane to jump smartly and went for the lead, followed by Victorio, with main rival Paramour (Neeraj Rawal up) racing close, within striking distance. Midway in the homestretch, Paramour tried her best to put pressure on Denny Crane, but the latter lengthened his stride to go away for a fluent victory. This performance from Denny Crane qualifies him as a strong contender for the Sprinters' Cup which is still nine weeks away.

Lucky jockey
Young jockey Yash Narredu, who returned after a gap of over three months, rode his very first mount to victory. He gave a powerful ride to the Nirad Karanjawalla-trained June to emerge victorious in the Hachiko Plate for class IV horses. Yash grabbed the lead with June and shook off all rivals in the homestretch except Rashun (TS Jodha up) who challenged at the 300-meter marker. A fierce duel ensued, both going neck and neck, and passing the winning post almost together, prompting race caller Deepak Rajpal to wonder if they had dead-heated. But the photo finish camera showed Yash had managed to hold on by the proverbial whisker. Yash was out of action for over three months after he had fractured his wrist in a fall at the Pune racetrack on September 10 this year.

Unlucky trainer
While Yash was lucky to make a winning comeback, young trainer Shazaan Shah was distinctly unlucky despite leading in Power Shadow, the first horse that he saddled, as a winner. Neeraj Rawal rode Shazaan's Power Shadow to victory in the upper division of the Supreme Star Plate, but the winner was relegated to second place in the stewards' room after CS Jodha, jockey of runner up Glorious Angel, lodged a protest. There was neither physical contact, nor had the two horses gone dangerously close to each other at any stage, but the stewards, in a controversial decision, decided to uphold the objection and revise the order of placings. The lucky beneficiaries of the decision were bookmakers who, after hot favourite Power Shadow's victory, were staring at huge losses in accumulator and kenchi bets as it was the fifth overwhelming favourite to score on the card.