An opening day for the ages

The opening day of the Invitation Cup weekend delivered the thrill and excitement it had promised all week as Hunting Goddess and My Opinion produced exemplary finish-line thrusts to seize two major spoils here on Saturday.

Hunting Goddess first set the tone with a cracking victory in the Zavaray S Poonawalla Sprinters' Cup over 1200 metres before eight-year-old My Opinion showed there’s no substitute to age and experience as he stole the show in the Dr MAM Ramaswamy Chettiar of Chettinad Memorial Stayers' Cup, run over a lung-crushing 3 kilometres at the Bangalore Turf Club.

Iron Age, piloted by top jockey P Trevor and one of the pre-race favourites, was the one first out of the blocks in the Sprinters’ Cup. Hunting Goddess, beautifully anchored by PS Chouhan right till the end and trained by master tactician Pesi Shroff, didn’t bolt all guns blazing but just stayed a little ahead of the pack behind Iron Age to ensure he doesn’t get caught out.

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The positions remained the same around the turn and Iron Age, coming to Bengaluru with a massive reputation having won from his last two starts, maintained his lead heading into the home straight. Slowly the bunch started to close the gap and Chouhan brought out his whip to press the accelerator on Hunting Goddess. It was a neck-and-neck affair but Iron Age managed to stay marginally ahead.

It looked like Iron Age may just hold off Hunting Goddess but the latter didn’t give up and just kept charging and charging. Now, it was matter of which horse has that extra ounce of fuel, and Hunting Goddess unleashed used it in the final 50 metres to overtake Iron Age and then crossed home first for a length and a half victory. Leopard Rock (Yash Narredu up) and Cool Rider (YS Srinath up) finished third and fourth respectively while pre-race favourite Agnostic ended a shocking last.

The Stayers’ Cup then outmatched the Sprinters’ Cup, a sensational climax that left most at the BTC in amazement. P Trevor, piloting overwhelming favourite Arc De Triomphe, made the call to emerge first out of the gates while My Opinion, ridden by veteran jockey Srinath, was second and Chamonix (PS Chouhan up) third. The position remained the same as the horses crossed the start-finish line for the first time.

It stayed that way until they entered the final bend and the positions changed only slightly at the end of it with Chamonix going ahead of My Opinion but Arc De Triomphe still in the front. With all having run at a decent speed for over two and half kilometres and the lungs burning, all eyes were on who’s going to make the call to bolt free.

Everyone chose to keep their cards close to their chest as Arc De Triomphe continued to maintain his lead. Slowly on the outside Success, piloted by Suraj Narredu, started to make a push with 100 metres left but Arc De Triomphe held fort nicely despite having set the pace from the beginning. In fact, it looked like the five-year-old would complete a fabulous wire-to-wire victory.

It was not to be as the 47-year-old Srinath, always in the race with My Opinion, miraculously got his horse to produce that one final push and he didn’t disappoint. Racing for a 54th time, My Opinion sensationally pipped Arc De Triomphe right at the post to score a head-length win. Such was the high quality of the race, Success came third a length behind while Chamonix was fourth.