Tarteeb lives up to top billing at Lahore races

LAHORE: Three-year-old filly Tarteeb justified her tag of favourite with an easy success in the feature event during the day/night Lahore Summer Meeting at the Racecourse here on Sunday.

Nine runners lined up for the Takht Hazara Plate Class VI 1,100-metre event. The unknown breed filly had absolutely no trouble in extending her winning streak to five.

Tarteeb opened as 30 to 100 favourite but her odds drifted upward soon and at one stage she was available at 90 to 100 as money flowed on Wind Chaser who was brought down from 5-2 to 3-2.

Tracking the leaders — thoroughbred colts Fast Winner and Wind Chaser —to the 200-metre marker, Tarteeb then quickened her pace magnificently to overtake them before crossing the line ahead of Wind Chaser by over two lengths with the exhausted Fast Winner three-fourth of a length away in third position. Another thoroughbred filly, Al Fajre, finished fourth another three lengths behind.

The winning filly, which was trained by Rana M. Arshad and donning the silks of Khizer Nawaz who is popularly known as Bajwa, provided jockey A. Raza an armchair ride.

The best performance of a jockey on Sunday was that of Bilal Ahmed who gave a dazzling display of horsemanship partnering bay colt Lucky Murad. At one stage it looked the colt had almost lost the race but Bilal did not gave it up and galvanized the colt in to action that saw him respond so well to win by over two lengths.

Jockey A. Raza and trainer Rana M. Arshad shared the Sunday’s racing honours with a brace of winners each. Raza rode Baby Doll in the fifth and sixth race, respectively. Arshad saddled Success Story and Tarteeb in the second and sixth race which was really a creditable double.

Results:

TAKHT HAZAR PLATE CLASS VII DIV IV-B — 800M:

Cute Leeza (Shahbaz Ali Butt) 8-8, S. Raza 1; Umar’s Love 8-2, Tahir Abbas 2; Great Adla 7-4, Riaz Hussain 3; Jay Cutlier 7-10, Sunny Babu 4.

Won by Short-head, 1½ L, ¾ L. Time 52 seconds. Winner trained by M. Hanif.

TAKHT HAZARA PLATE CLASS VII DIV IV-A — 1,000M:

Success Story (Mian Mohammad Farrukh) 9-0, Qadeer Ahmed 1; Dildar 8-10, Shah Nawaz 2; Chal Samney 8-8, Sunny Babu 3; Legend Prince 8-10, Imran Pervez 4.

Won by Head, 3 L, 3 L. Time one minute 6 4/5 seconds. Winner trained by Rana M. Arshad.

TAKHT HAZARA PLATE CLASS VII DIV II & IV — 1,000M:

Tora Rose (Sardar Ali Amin Khan) 9-0, Imran Pervez 1; Heart Beat 8-10, Alam Sher 2; King Of Murad 8-12, S. Raza 3; Tera Karam 8-4, Sunny Babu 4.

Won by 2½ L, 1½ L, 1¾ L. Time one minute 5 1/5 seconds. Winner trained by Mohammad Afzal.

TAKHT HAZARA PLATE CLASS VII DIV III — 1,000M:

Lucky Murad (Shahbaz Ali Butt) 8-0, Bilal Ahmed 1; Dua 8-6, Shakeel Mahmood 2; Black Shadow 9-0, Zameer 3; Mitchal Stark 8-2, Tahir Abbas 4.

Won by 2½ L, 3 L, 6 L. Time one minute 3 4/5 seconds. Winner trained by M. Hanif.

TAKHT HAZARA PLATE CLASS VII DIV I & II — 1,000M:

Baby Doll (Ata-ur-Rehman) 8-4, A. Raza 1; Gujrat Queen 9-4, M. Wasim 2; Victory Malik 8-4, Sunny Babu 3; Mah-e-Doura 9-0, Shakeel Mahmood 4.

Won by 3 L, 6 L, Neck. Time one minute 3 seconds. Winner trained by Abdullah.

TAKHT HAZARA PLATE CLASS VI — 1,100M:

Tarteeb (Khizer Nawaz) 9-0, A. Raza 1; Wind Chaser 8-6, Aamir Pervez 2; Fast Winner 8-0, Aftab Chaudhry 3; Al Fajre 7-8, Imran Pervez 4.