BTC sways to Juliette's romance

Jockey PS Chouhan and his horse Northern Lights won the Major P K Mehra Memorial Super Mile Cup at the Bangalore Turf Club in Bengaluru on Sunday. DH Photo/ B H Shivakumar

She’s like fine wine and just keeps getting better with age. She’s like the great Hollywood actor Julia Roberts who keeps getting better with every movie and continues to be a performer par excellence even now,” remarked trainer Karthik Ganapathy of his mare Juliette at the draw ceremony of the Invitation Cup weekend where she was installed as the odds-on favourite to win the biggest prize.

On a hot early summer Sunday at the Bangalore Turf Club packed to the rafters, the seven-year-old Juliette showed why not just her trainer sang paeans about her but even the punters and bookmakers marked her out for special praise. She produced one of the best runs ever seen at this race course, in fact smashing the course record to gallop away to an astounding victory in the Royal Arion Club Indian Turf Invitation Cup over 2400 metres.

Such was Juliette’s age-defying run, similar to eight-year-old My Opinion’s magical last-gasp triumph in the Dr MAM Ramaswamy Chettiar of Chettinad Memorial Stayers’ Cup over 3000 metres on Saturday, literally everyone, even those who may have lost money by trying their luck in backing a different horse to come good, stood up applauded her and jockey CS Jodha.

“Man, she too good”, “She’s simply incredible”, “She’s proven she’s unbeatable, “She’s created a legacy of her own,” “Age, class and experience can’t be replaced”... were some the words muttered by racing patrons in the immediate aftermath of Juliette’s retention of her crown that she won equally majestically in Chennai last year.

With Juliette racing in Bengaluru for the first time, Jodha opted to go for a slow start as Ganapathy’s second horse Blazing (Bhawani S up) decided to set the pace. Until the start of the final bend, Jodha chose to stay behind the leaders — Supernatural (P Trevor up) 1, La Reina (A Sandesh up) 2, and Wall Street (Suraj Narredu up) 3.

Even as the horses sped around the final bend, Jodha didn’t press the accelerator but took the massive gamble of conserving Juliette’s energy. Entering the home straight, Supernatural was on pole, La Reina second with Juliette slowing clicking the gears up. With 200 metres to go, Jodha then decided time was right to hit the nitro button and Juliette responded in amazing fashion.

In a space of 100 metres, Juliette literally sped past everyone to open up a handy lead. But Chouhan, whipping up King’s Ransom, gave Juliette a tough chase and the duo turned the blue riband event into a two-horse race. Everyone was on the edge of their seats but Juliette held off King’s Ransom’s charge to cross the line in 2:28.40, beating Temerity’s record of 2:28.85 over 12 furlongs. La Reina came a decent third while Supernatural was fourth.

“There are no words to describe what a wonderful and great horse she is,” said a` beaming Ganapathy after planting a kiss on Juliette’s head.

“What she and Jodha did today was magical and I’ll remember it for a long time.”

In the day’s other big attraction, the Maj PK Mehra Memorial Super Mile Cup over 1600 metres, Northern Lights, ridden by Chouhan and trained by Pesi Shroff, produced a superb start to finish performance to score a classy triumph with Once You Go Black (Akshay Kumar up) second and Ahead Of My Time (A Sandesh) third.

Chouhan took about 150 metres to get Northern Lights, starting from the outside, to cut in and take the lead but once the gelding did that, he just couldn’t be caught till the end. From there, then through the final turn and home straight, Northern Lights never surrendered the lead and with 300 metres to go, he looked comfortably placed to score a win, which he eventually did in the end.