The first Classic of the Mumbai season 2025-26 will be run at the Mahalaxmi racetrack on Sunday (Dec 14). At the entries` stage there are 13 runners in the fray, but only one filly is being talked about: Fynbos.
The Kingda ka – Mahali three-year-old filly bred at the Nanoli Stud was carefully folded up like an expensive accordion by trainer Pesi Shroff after her Bangalore Derby triumph in July. She chose to stay indoors during the entire Pune monsoon season, and made her first appearance on the opening day of the Mumbai season in a Class II event which she won, clocking 33.79 seconds for the final three furlongs, without working up sweat! Personally, I have never seen a lay-off horse registering that kind of a finish without really getting into the top gear.
True, as I mentioned there are 13 runners at the entries` stage, including Prasanna Kumar`s Ravishing Beauty and Rajesh Narredu`s Indian Brocade (who both finished in photo for the Mysore 1000 Guineas), not to mention Pesi Shroff`s own Kings Gambit who, ironically, was the first favourite–and only length-and-a-quarter shy at the wire–when Fynbos scored her first victory as longshot on this track last year. Kings Gambit also dazzled on the opening day of the current season, albeit winning a class III race, and the Dynamic Class difference between the two, at present, seems unbridgeable. In all probability, Fynbos will likely end up easily winning the first Classic of the season with a measure of comfort.
In the 2009-10 season, Pesi Shroff trained Jacqueline, in the hands of Richard Hughes, made a clean sweep of the first four Indian Classics at Mahalaxmi: the 1000 Guineas, 2000 Guineas, the Oaks and the Derby. The main reason was Jacqueline was far superior to the entire crop of that year–colts included! (Becket, trained by S Padmanabhan, who beat Jacqueline in the Indian St Leger, was a broken horse when the first four Classics were run).
If Fynbos wins the 1000 Guineas on Sunday, as she most probably will, it will be interesting to see if she tries to emulate Jacqueline, because even among this crop, there is no colt who seems capable of taking on Fynbos.
