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Bourbon King will try to avenge defeat

Anil Mukhi

HYDERABAD: Unlike the lukewarm response to last year’s Indian Turf Invitation Cup, which saw only five outstation runners tackle a single Kolkata-based runner, this year the 46th renewal of the race, to be run at Malakpet, Hyderabad, will see ten of India’s best thoroughbred four-year-olds in action.

All the previous six winners at this centre have been from Bangalore (4) or Mumbai (2) and it seems that this trend is set to continue.

Bangalore’s Bourbon King will aim at gaining revenge over the Mahalakshmi-trained Hotstepper for his defeat at the hands of the latter in the McDowell Indian Derby exactly four weeks ago.

As last year, the solitary below-par run of the Derby favourite must be discounted.

Last time out, Bourbon King was ridden like a non-stayer, but lasted out every centimetre of the 2,400m trip.

Having found himself virtually in the next district at the turn because of the exaggerated waiting tactics adopted by Colm O’Donoghue, the hapless son of Diffident made up an enormous amount of ground. With more judicious tactics, he could be hard to toss said trainer Subbaiah Ganapathy about his chances.

Hotstepper, too, with new pilot Frankie Dettori at the controls, is poised to complete a double and the Syed Shah-trainee has worked well.

With half a dozen finishing within a couple of lengths of each other in the Derby, the opportunity for any one of the beaten brigade to step up and turn the tables is evident. Sweeping Success, also an inmate of Ganapathy’s yard and the Padmanabhan-trained pair of Noble Prince and Retribution are obvious candidates for this turnaround as is Kolkata’s Regal Connection, whose trainer reports he has travelled well.

In the final analysis, it is a clash between runners equipped with a swift change of gear (Bourbon King and Noble Prince) and those with a high cruising speed (Hotstepper and Sweeping Success) and the race should prove to be an absorbing spectacle.

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