Forest Flame casts long shadow

Forest Flame - One horse race? (photo credit: RWITC)

Among the five colts and six filles in the fray for the Gr 1, Poonawalla Breeders' Multi-Million (PBMM) to be run this Sunday at the Mahalaxmi racewtrack, one filly stands out on sheer performance. Her name is Forest Flame. She is by Leitir Mor out of Memory Bay, and is trained by the Bangalore-based trainer Suleiman S Attaollahi.

Interestingly, like half a dozen other runners out of 11 in the final line up, she is bred by the Poonawallas, and will race in the silks of Zavaray Poonawalla who, along with his family, owns her in partnership with Mukul Sonawala & D R Thacker. Forest Flame will be ridden on Sunday by David Egan.

Just two good
Forest Flame made her debut at Bangalore on December 28 last year and annihilated her ten rivals which also included the extremely good type Golden Oaks (also in the fray now). Next, both Forest Flame and Golden Oaks did what very few Bangalore three-year-olds manage to do: winning on their first show at Mahalaxmi. They did it in front of the Derby day crowd in style. Needless to say, there is a strong possibility that they will finish one-two in the coveted grade 1 race which is popularly known as the "juvenile Derby".

Other hopefuls
The Mahalaxmi-based quartet of Air Blast (Air Support - Sabre Dance), Giant Star (Excellent Art - Sweeping Star), California (Speaking Of Which - Godspeed) & Successor (Leitir Mor - Sweeping Success) are no doubt very good juveniles in their own right, but are likely to find beating Forest Flame an uphill task. However, Lombardy, the Hyderabad challenger by Leitir Mor out of Lombardia, trained by L V R Deshmukh and to be ridden by A Sandesh, may try to create a flutter by locking horns with Forest Flame in the longish Mahalaxmi homestretch. The proverbial dark horse title should be awarded to Violin (Phoenix Tower - Nojoom), trained by Neil Darashah and to be ridden by P Trevor, thanks to her very interesting debut at Bangalore just two weeks ago.

Clash of the titans
Along with the horses, teams of Indian and foreign jockeys will also lock horns on the Sunday card. The Indian team will comprise of jockeys P Trevor, A Sandesh and P S Chouhan, while the foreign riders' team will have David Allan, David Egan and Nicky Mackay. The winning team and the champion jockey will be decided based on a points system.

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