Jockey Chouhan, trainer Shroff dominate on final day

This picture has been used for representational purpose

The final race day at the Pune racetrack, which is playing host to the current Mumbai season 2020-21, turned out to be the most memorable for veteran jockey PS Chouhan and champion trainer Pesi Shroff. The former rode six winners, and the latter saddled five winners on the ten-race Sunday card.

The two star professionals combined to win four races which included the grade 3, Breeders' Produce Stakes, the feature event of the day, with Miracle, and the supporting event, the Hyderabad Race Club Trophy, with Parisian. The two other winners shared by them were Tigrio (Picasso Plate) and Socrates (Days Best Plate - Div II).

Pesi Shroff's fifth winner was ridden by Dashrath Singh who substituted for jockey Y S Srinath on Seasons Greetings in the upper division of the Days Best Plate. Besides riding four winners for Shroff, Chouhan rode one winner each for trainers Faisal Abbas (Tanhaiyaan) and Adhirajsingh Jodha (Thunderclap), picking up both the lower and the upper divisions of the Bold March Plate respectively.

Matching the western India record of former jockey Aslam Kader who had ridden six winners on a single card (Mahalaxmi racecourse, 1993), P S Chouhan has now stormed into the jockeys' championship battle for the season which, until a few weeks ago, looked like a duel between younger jockeys P Trevor and A Sandesh. With his six-win Sunday haul, Chouhan (22 wins) has already zoomed well past P Trevor (17 wins), and is breathing down the neck of A Sandesh (25 wins) whose position at the top of the tally looked unassailable until yesterday morning.

The scene will now shift to Mahalaxmi racecourse on Sunday (Feb 28) where racing was abruptly called off due to the sudden lockdown imposed on account of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Mahalaxmi racecourse, considered the Mecca of Indian racing, will come alive to the sound of hooves after a gap of exactly 11 months.