Thirteen horses are left in the fray at the final stage of the MiD DAY Trophy, one of the most-looked-forward-to events of the final Sunday of the year 2010
Thirteen horses are left in the fray at the final stage of the MiD DAY Trophy, one of the most-looked-forward-to events of the final Sunday of the year 2010. 
A photograph from last year's MiD DAY Trophy presentation where
Bollywood star Akshay Kumar (left) greets winning jockey S A DeSouza
The trophy was instituted by the Royal Western India Turf Club (RWITC) Ltd a few years ago to commemorate the newspaper's contribution as media partner, and has now become a hot and happening event thanks to the star value attached to it every year.
The glamour quotient will scale a new peak this Sunday as film star Saif Ali Khan, who had portrayed a flamboyant horse owner in Abbas Mastan's movie 'Race', will give away the MiD DAY Trophy to the owner of the winning horse.
The MiD DAY Trophy is scheduled as the seventh race on Sunday's nine-race card, and will be flagged off at 4.30 pm, to be followed 30 minutes later by the day's feature event, the Rohan Lifescapes Maharaja Jiwajirao Scindia Trophy (Gr 3) for which a dozen top-class horses will face the starter, including Becket and Autonomy, winners of the Indian Turf Invitation Cup this year and last year respectively.
The MiD DAY Trophy is reserved exclusively for three -year-old horses that have yet to win their first race. This concept makes the race interesting and competitive. The field every year is dominated by horses who are fancied highly by their connections based on their bloodlines, but had to put the champagne on hold because they could not come to hand early for some reason or other.
Earnest
These late bloomers, who miss most of the action in the Million races that pass them by, nevertheless are prepared in earnest for the MiD DAY trophy which offers rich purse money of close to half a million rupees, the winner taking away 57% of it all along with a trophy valued at Rs 25,000. The 13 in the fray this year have an interesting mix: seven of them are males (two colts & five geldings) and the rest six are females or fillies.
Nine of the 13 have some racing experience while four will be making their racing debut. Of the nine that have run earlier, there are bred by Sohna who had also bred last year's MiD DAY trophy winner Il Tabarro, while others are bred at Nanoli stud farm, owned by KN Dhunjibhoy in whose silks Il Tabarro had achieved
that feat.
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