THE ‘OOMPH’ FACTOR SCORES IN THE BANGALORE 1000 GUINEAS, GR.2

She was a maiden, had raced seven times in three cities before she was sent to try her luck in the Bangalore 1000 Guineas, Gr.2, where she was up against horses that definitely possessed better credentials to win that she had. But her trainer Vishal Gaikwad was truly confident that his ward, Oomph (Midnight Interlude-Jahanara) would do it and must have surely brought the house down in Mumbai as he was not present in Bangalore for the race.
Cerise Noir as favourite in the race, took off in her front running style, similar to her last start which she won by a large margin, but it wasn’t hard to see that the pace of the race would make winning difficult. She was followed by Harmonia, Blue Moon, Orinda and Shemyscript, Oomph just behind them and the last pair was New Creation and Hammersmith. Around the 1100 m marker, Blue Moon settled in second behind the leader with Shesmyscript and Harmonia following, Orinda on the rails and Oomph were in close touch and the back markers remained the same. At the 500m marker these was urgency shown on the part of New Creation to get moving into contention. As they turned for home Cerise Noir was in full flight followed by Blue Moon. While Harmonia fell out of contention Shesmyscript was tackled by Orinda on the railvside and Oomph put in a challenge on the outside. New Creation was pushed to perform searching for room on the inside, while Hammersmith was still at the rear. In the final 100 m Oomph gave it her all on the outside while New Creation squeezed her way through, the lead of Cerise Noir diminishing rapidly.Blue Moon kept persevering in second till in the shadow of the post she had Oomph grab the lead on her outside while New Creation got ahead of her on the inside leaving her in third while the favourite fell back into fourth. ¾ length separated Oomph from New Creation, Blue Moon in third was but a neck away, and Cerise Noir a long neck away in fourth. New Creation was a trifle unlucky having encountered traffic problems along her way and she will probably find the longer distance of the Oaks more to her liking.

The property of the Dhunjibhoy family and Mr Berjis Desai certainly decided to shed her maiden status in style. Prior to the race we mentioned that she could win the race if she could ‘up the oomph factor’ and she certainly did that when it was need most.