Englishman Nicky Mackay won his first Indian Classic, the Villoo Poonawalla Indian 2000 Guineas (Gr 1), when he vigorously rode the S K Sunderji-trained Trouvaille to a thrilling victory over the Pesi Shroff-trained Alexi (P Trevor up) to win by a "nose", virtually in the last stride. In the process, Trouvaille re-wrote the course record for the mile trip, slashing 0.13 second off the old record, touching the wire at 1 minute 35.69 seconds.

Interestingly, both Trouvaille and Alexi were racing second last and last respectively until the race took serious turn after the final bend, even as Wizard Of Odds (L Roche up) and Knight Templar (David Allan up) almost jointly guided the way to the rest of them. In fact, Trouvaille, short of a prep run after his Pune Derby victory, couldn't match early pace of the race, and Nicky Mackay, who revealed after the race he was "asked to follow David Allan (Knight Templar)", took his own decision to relax his mount at the wrong end.