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She came. She ran. She conquered–the story of Juliette`s 19th career victory at the Pune racetrack on Saturday can be aptly summed up in those three short sentences involving six words.
Juliette, the eight-year-old champion mare owned by Zavaray Poonawalla and his family, merely completed the formality of showing up at the Pune racetrack and winning the grade 3, Threptin Fillies` & Mares` Stakes, the feature event of Saturday`s eight-race card. In the process, Juliette gave a thrashing to her two rivals–beating rival West Brook by over half a dozen lengths and stable mate Daianne virtually a street further away.
In the opening race, the lower division of the Yogender Singh Trophy, jockey Santosh G scored his second victory of the season astride the Adhirajsingh-trained three-year-old Gypsy Soul, taking charge opposite the stands to dash ahead, only to find the five-year-old Mojo (Amyn Merchant up) closing in on him. But Santosh deftly handled the favourite to cross the wire first.
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Sandesh on a roll
Trainer Narendra Lagad`s Leo The Lion was driven to victory by jockey A Sandesh in the Capriole Plate over 2,000m. Sandesh then completed a quick double by winning the Truefitt & Hill Founder`s Trophy for Class III horses astride the Karthik-trained Azrinaz, bringing the Roderic O`Connor – Maleficent filly with a flourish on the wide outside, accelerating from the rear. Trainer Karthik was again in the luck in the very next race, the upper division of the Yogender Singh Trophy, as two horses, ridden by freshly minted apprentice boys claiming 5-kg allowance–S Siddharth (on the V Kasbekar-trained Jet Typhoon) and Bharat Singh (astride the Karthik-trained Lord Vader)–passed the winning post almost “locked” together. The photo finish verdict went in favour of Lord Vader and Bharat Singh who became the first apprentice from the batch of 2024 to taste the success.
In the October Handicap for three-year-old horses in class IV, the Sanjay Kolse-trained three-year-old filly Zendaya (Excellent Art – Flaming Glory) braved the wide gate position of 12 to get into striking position as Mumtaz (G Vivek up) led all the way. But Zendaya, with A Sandesh in saddle who was then looking for his third win on the card, moved up with gigantic strides to overtake Mumtaz in the final furlong.
Bro love
Interestingly, trainer Sanjay Kolse also made another serious, wire-to-wire bid to win the Nana Raghunath Trophy, named after his late brother who also trained horses at Mumbai & Pune, by sending out Earth (A Sandesh up) who went down narrowly in the last few yards to the favourite, Celestial (Vivek G up), saddled by Pesi Shroff to whom trainer Sanjay Kolse himself happily presented the Nana Raghunath Trophy.
Waikiki, trained by MK Jadhav and ridden by jockey NS Parmar, won the last race on the card, the Gruezi Plate, by unleashing a powerful run in the homestretch.
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