Pune horse racing: Miss American Pie triumphs

Representation Pic

Four-year-old Miss American Pie (Gleneagles - Reine Australe) hit the front from the word go, and continued to cut blazing fractions to comfortably win the feature event, the Akkasaheb Maharaj Trophy (Gr 3), clocking the smart time of 1m:08.190s. Miss American Pie was trained by MK Jadhav and ridden by NS Parmar.

The same trainer-jockey pair had won the Star Future Plate with Exuma. The bookmakers offered almost toss-of-the-coin odds of 11/10 each on both Big Red (S Saqlain up) and Exuma (NS Parmar up) in the Star Future Plate, and the horses justified their assessment with Exuma finishing only half a length ahead of Big Red after running over the mile-and-a-half trip.

Another trainer-jockey combo that scored a double on the Saturday card was that of trainer Adhirajsingh and jockey A Sandesh. They won the Dinkoo N Chenoy Trophy decisively with three-year-old filly Timeless Vision (Cougar Mountain - Timeless Love), and quickly followed up with the Iffraaj - Quilting three-year-old colt Mysterious stranger, to whom Sandesh gave a powerhouse ride when he got him going from the rear of the field to steal the September Handicap in a sensational manner.

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The odds on the Imtiaz Sait-trained Christophany ridden by Neeraj Rawal went up considerably as huge money started rolling in on the Aman Hussain-trained Art Collector, on whom jockey TS Jodha replaced Akshay Kumar as the latter's flight from Hyderabad was cancelled on account of bad weather. On the racetrack, however, Christophany, after settling a respectable distance away from the front runners, moved up with menacing strides to storm into the lead, and it ceased to be a contest thereafter.

In the opening race of the day, the lower division of the Jaidev Trophy for 5y & older horses in Class IV, two Lagad horses--House Of Lords and Northern Singer--received most of the betting money, and finished exactly in that order, apprentice rider S Saba making it a start-to-finish affair astride House Of Lords.

In the other division of the same race jockey Bhavani Singh opened his account for the season with Aries, trained by Karthik G, who stalked the pace until negotiating the turn, then shot ahead to seal the fate of the race.

Trainer Narendra Lagad who had led in House Of Lords jr opening race also wrapped up the last race of the day, the Ishpingo Plate, with the Mustakim Alam-ridden Zacapa, thus emulating MK Jadhav and Adhirajsingh.