LAHORE: A six-event card featuring a cup race awaits race-goers when the day/night Lahore Summer Meeting is staged here at the Racecourse on Sunday.

The main event, the Cholistan Cup, a Class VII Division I and II race, contains seven runners. The trio of thoroughbred colts Zindabad, Olympus and Al Shouq look real contenders in the fifth race of the order.

Dark bay colt Zindabad, who scored a record-equalling victory in a 900-metre race clocking 53 2/5 seconds a fortnight ago, will be seeking to maintain the winning mode.

Olympus, who won the 1,000-metre race and bay colt Al Shouq, who clinched a race over 900 metres in 52 4/5 seconds, could be Zindabad’s close challengers.

The first and the second race, meant for country-bred horses in Class VII Division VII, consists of eleven and eight runners, all maidens, and it will be difficult to make any prediction about the result.

The third race, the Shah Kot Plate Class VII Division VI, has the largest field of a dozen runners, most of whom are good sprinters. Of them Mitchal Prince, Fazeel Prince and Chhota Pathan are the form contenders for top slot.

In the fourth race having seven runners, bay colt Mufasa, bay gelding Memraiz Prince and bay horse Zaman Sahib look on chance.

The sixth race featuring seven runners looks an open event with majority of the contestants having a chance on form and handicap to land a surprise.

In all, 52 runners are to compete in today’s races, all to be run over 800 metres. The first race starts at 5:30pm.

Meanwhile in order to benefit owners financially, the Lahore Race Club (LRC) has, from Sunday, added one more race to the daily programme for the country-bred horses to be handicapped in Class VII Division VII with a strict condition that all horses will be on the job.

In case the club stewards suspect some violation of the set condition, they keep the option to change the rider of the suspect horse, said an LRC notification issued here the other day.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2023