KARACHI: Long shot six-year-old bay horse Ghazi Gift lowered the colours of public fancy mare Poetry to win the feature event as three favourites obliged all and sundry in the Gymkhana race meeting at the Karachi Racecourse on Saturday.

Ghazi Gift, who was among those who also ran in the last outing with rider Tariq Baran astride last week, shocked odds on favourite mare Poetry in photo-finish by short head verdict to open his account this year.

The feature event was classified as scale order II, III and IV and run over four-and-a-half furlongs.

This time Ghazi Gift was piloted home by rider Sohail Ahmed who had earlier steered the horse to fourth-place finish on Feb 2.

Mare Duran Duran fell two-and-a-half lengths behind to grab third place followed by mare Sweet Victory another five lengths away.

Place Your Best was withdrawn before the race reducing the field to seven horses.

At the outset dark bay mare Sassy Gold made amends of preceding week loss to Aas Pass edging mare Sharapova by short head to give a positive start to horse racing connoisseurs in the first race.

Bay horse Secret Mind, who had only one run so far this year was placed third two lengths away edging Winning Direction by distance.

Backed by connection, unknown pedigree dark bay mare Sohrab-e-Bhakkar won the next race as he pleased by 11 lengths beating mare Aas Pass for the honours.

The race was preceded by re-betting ordered by the stewards.

Fakhr-e-Kashmir and Jawad Prince were placed third and fourth respectively among five starters.

Unknown pedigree bay mare Second Life atoned for last week’s loss beating Black Smoke by half-a-length to clinch the supporting race.

It may be mentioned that Second Life had to be content with second place five lengths behind Paris in the last outing as Black Smoke was third.

Sonia Again and Quetta Queen followed the two in same order on board.

Results:

THE BROAD PEAK PLATE SCALE ORDER VIII — 4 F:

Sassy Gold (Mohammad Ali Inayat) 8-4, Nazil Hussain 1; Sharapova 9-0, Aksir A 2; Secret Mind 9-0, Zaki Zakir 3; Winning Direction 9-0, Wasim 4.

Won by S. Head, 2 L, Dist. Time: 0.55 seconds. Winner trained by Sher Mohammad.

THE BROAD PEAK PLATE SCALE ORDER VII & VIII— 4 F:

Sohrab-e-Bhakkar (Ali Raza Zia) 9-0 (cr8-9), Zohaib Qamar 1; Aas Pass 8-8, Nazil Hussain 2; Fakhr-e-Kashmir 8-8, Wasim 3; Jawad Prince 8-8 (cr8-4), Ali Raza II 4.

Won by 11 L, 3½ L, 8 L. Time: 0.52 2/5 seconds. Winner trained by Tanvir Abbasi.

THE BROAD PEAK PLATE SCALE ORDER V, VI & VIII — 4½ F:

Second Life (Syed Ismail Shah) 8-4, Zaki Zakir 1; Black Smoke 8-7, Nazil Hussain 2; Sonia Again 7-3 (cr7-6), Ali Ehsan 3, Quetta Queen 7-6 (cr8-2), Shahzad Gul 4.

Won by ½ L, 9 L, Dist. Time: 0.58 2/5 seconds. Winner trained by Ghulam Shabbir II.

THE BROAD PEAK PLATE SCALE ORDER II, III & IV — 4½ F:

Ghazi Gift (Khalid Arshad) 8-10, Sohail Ahmed 1; Poetry 8-3, Asad Aksir 2; Duran Duran 7-10, Zaki Zakir 3; Sweet Victory 9-6, Mohammad Manzoor 4.

Won by short head, 2½ L, 5 L. Time: 0.58 3/5 seconds. Winner trained by Mohammad Hanif.

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2019