LAHORE: The progenies of the Irish sire Tybalt continued their turf domination when they won both the feature and the main supporting event during the 12th Lahore Winter Meeting at the Racecourse here on Sunday.

Long shot, the bay colt Farhan King (Tybalt-More Adora) won the prestigious feature event, the Sheikh Sajjad Ahmad Memorial Cup, a term race for two-year-old thoroughbreds, run over 1100 metres, thwarting the challenge of his eight well-bred opponents.

He beat home chestnut colt, Jhoom by over three lengths while bay colt Sir finished a close third. The much talked about prodigy, colt Champ, despite his noted potentials of speed and stamina, failed to live up to his 80 to 100 favouritism and hardly managed to hit the board.

Ridden by jockey Safdar Hussain, Farhan King overcame all odds to add his name to the annual fixtures roll of honour named after a former senior and highly regarded Lahore Race Club (LRC) steward, who guided the club ship towards safety in his decades-long association.

The main supporting event, the Conflict Plate class VII division 11, run over 1000 metres, was won by bay filly Great Recovery (Tybalt-Star Jump) in a field of a dozen two and three-year-old thoroughbreds. The Shahid Rehman trained filly Great Recovery beat bay colt Notorious One by a length with colt Summer Beauty third.

The day’s riding honours were shared by up and coming riding boy Awais Anjum and jockey Safdar, who rode home three and two winners respectively, to highlight the day’s racing.

Both riders have made a marked improvement in the saddle skill with strong encouragement from steward Syed Tasvir Hussain as mentor.

For the punters it was a terrible day as only two favourite horses won in a card of seven races while in the other five events, long shots came to the fore.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2022