Sunday races: Trainer H Daji’s confidence pays off

This picture has been used for representational purposes

Grey filly Petronia, owned by the father-son duo of Khushroo and Zahir Dhunjibhoy, won the S A Poonawalla Trophy (Gr 3), the feature event of Sunday's eight-race card. The three-year-old filly, trained by Hosidar Daji and superbly ridden by K Nazil, displayed a great deal of determination in the final furlong when she first warded off a spirited challenge posed by the favourite Alicia (P S Chouhan up), and later frustrated an accelerating Regal Command (Bhawani Singh up) close to the wire.

In a pre-race interview, trainer Daji had said he was certainly fancying the chances of Petronia, and, understandably, his beaming face bore the "I told you so!" look when leading in the winner.

"Petronia was slow to jump in her last start, but still made good ground in the closing stages," he said in a post-race chat, "I was confident she would have a very good chance if she took a level jump this time."

And true to the trainer's expectation, Petronia did jump well from the gates; in fact, she hit the front from the word go, and never surrendered the advantage until passing the winning post. At the wire, Petronia spared three parts of a length to Regal Command who pushed the favourite Alicia into third place with a short head verdict.

Trainer Pesi Shroff once again emerged as the star professional for the day, having won three races on the card. Jockey P S Chouhan partnered two of Shroff's winners to gain a double for the day.