Royal Salute & Westside Story win impressively

Bangalore, June 27^th 2015,

On a day not many had given a chance for the M R Stud owned property Royal Salute  in the feature event of the day, the 5 year old from Prasanna Kumar’s yard gave a thumping to all other pretenders by winning the race at a smart timing of 1:24.70. How the form clerks are made to easily forget the form of this horse is very hard to understand. One needs to think out of box to find this kind of winners at handsome odds. While the punter’s focus in this race has been cornered by the hype surrounding Your Royal Majesty, Vivid Impression and to some extent Booker Jones, Royal Salute attracted only stray bets and was easily available at 8/1 & 9/1. Your Royal Majesty has performed miserably at Bangalore, Vivid Impression is having her first run in such exalted company (Class-I), Booker Jones is running in Class-I without having won Class-II. Whereas Royal Salute has won in the same class twice carrying 53kg & 56kg clocking good time of 1.12.63 & 1.13.41. In race no 25 it has beaten Smilestone the vanquisher of Your Royal Majesty in a terms contest. With positive jockey change from T S Jodha to A Imran Khan and handicap advantage over Smilestone and Your Royal Majesty, if race no 57 is an index,Royal Salute should have been the obvious choice to win this race albeit a small worry of additional 200m. In the end Royal Salute proved his prowess by Royally annexing the Patrons Cup.

In another event of the day, West Side Story finally stamped her authority in no uncertain terms by winning it by clocking close to the best time for 1200m race so far at this centre. There was enough indication for the filly’s chances as she has given very smart time in the morning trial tracks which she reproduced on the race track. It will be interesting to see how the handicapper is going to view this run. Super Force may have spoilt her handicap chances by running into 2^nd position while Rich Revival may have kept her chances alive by escaping with a small penalty, if any, for future gamble in the same class.

Another notable winner of the day was Sea Fairey who won in the hands of Trevor Patel where as the favourite Silver Legend in hands of Suraj never raised any hope.

Even though the victory of Androstos looked very labored, it is quite clear that this gelding is craving for more galloping ground and if he gets it in his next run he is surely going to provide an encore.

All the effort of the trainer of Passion Flora went waste in the first race of the day as the filly offered nothing when pressed for an effort at the top of the turn, even though she was very much on the vanguard, which allowed Trapezoid to run away with the race merrily. The long layoff from the race track has prevented Goodwill Warrior any chances of victory. Queens Solitaire also gave a decent effort but nothing much can be read into this run.

While Lucia has been getting penalized continuously by her place efforts, Baracchus won the Y S Surendar Memorial Cup in workman like fashion. It is a pity that Lucia despite her potential has just one career victory to show which indicates the lack of shrewdness on the part of the trainer by having her campaigned her over ambitiously at times.

The 1800m race slated for the day was obviously confined to The Way I am and Turf Tactics who are the only two horses which have traversed this distance before. Turf Tactics was ridden a waiting race which proved conclusive in the final stages as it was driven out pushing The Way I am to 2^nd place.

In the final race of the day while the form clerks expected All Proof to showcase his talent in his age group race after giving hints of impending victory in his last run, he proved them wrong by just about winning the race by finishing ahead of the fast finishing Seven Of Hearts.