MANSOOR BEG – The Indian Derby (Gr1) 1950

That an Indian-bred stallion can sire an Indian Derby winner appears, to many, a presposterous idea even today; it was even more outlandish midway through the twentieth century. That he could, in fact, sire the winners of all Indian Classics in one year, would have been put down as a flight of fancy. If you added the rider that he could do so out of mares not in the stud book, you would have been laughed at or declared insane. The Renala Stud stallion Philosopher came within a length of achieving just that in 1949-50. If he had done so, he may or may not have qualified for an entry into the Guinness Book of Records but Ripley’s Belive It or Not would have admitted him unhesitatingly.

That year, the Sheridan horse Philosopher’s daughter Gamble For Love won the first three Indian Classics. His son Mansoor Beg followed up by winning the Indian Derby and was beaten by just a length in the St. Leger. Nectar — the dam of Gamble For Love — and New Crop — the dam of Mansoor Beg — were both ineligible for an entry into the Indian Stud Book since they had flaws in their pedigrees.
Mansoor Beg, who was owned by Mr F M Potia and trained by H R Somekh throughout his career, was a rich chestnut with a small star and a conjoint stripe coming down to the bridge of the nose. There was no white on his limbs. He was slow to come to hand and did not race during the entire 1948-49 Mumbai season. However, he did make his debut on the opening day of the Pune season on 30 July when he was ridden by the little known Kassam Hassan, was totally unfancied, swerved sideways as the tapes went up, lost four lengths and was soon tailed off. There couldn’t have been a gloomier start to the career of a future Indian Derby winner.
The colt, however, made quick amends when, with Pandu Khade in the saddle, he won the Division II of the Baroda Plate over 7 furlongs from Marhaba, a Talib-trained second favourite who had Kheem Singh aboard. The favourite, Maharaja of Idar’s Stoney, ran unplaced and Marhaba was being hailed as the winner when Khade came with a smooth run to win by half a length. His next start was in Mumbai over 9 furlongs where he was the joint favourite with Deuce of Clubs from Talib’s yard. Kheem Singh’s mount ran no kind of a race so that Khade had it all to his way and he won impressively by five lengths.
Mansoor Beg was among the 14 starters who went to the post for the Indian 2000 Guineas where no one was looking beyond Messrs H M Ahmedbhoy and A J Wadia’s Talib-trained filly Gamble For Love. Gamble For Love, who had strolled home to a six-length victory in the Indian 1000 Guineas, was the firm favourite. Mansoor Beg was still immature and improving. He showed even further improvement in the race and may have been a trifle unlucky for he was blocked on the rails at a crucial juncture. Gamble For Love, in the meantime, had been sent on by Kheem Singh and was romping ahead of the field. Khade extricated Mansoor Beg from the traffic jam and the colt responded so gallantly that he gained ground hand over fist in the closing stages, finishing just half a length shy at the wire. Indeed, Kheem Singh had to pull out all stops on Gamble For Love and the filly stopped the clock at 1.39 — 2.2 seconds faster than in the 1000 the previous Saturday — and in the process not only established a new track record — surprising at that time of the year — but broke the 1.40 barrier for the mile in an Indian Guineas.
With both the Guineas in her kitty, Gamble For Love was headed for the Indian Oaks. In mid-January, Somekh brought out Mansoor Beg in the Bilkha Plate over 9 furlongs. An odds-on favourite, he gave his backers a jolt by being the last one to leave the barrier. That, fortunately for them, was their only moment of anxiety. Khade, with his customary cool, did not hurry the favourite, passed one horse every furlong to be handy round the bend and then brought him along with a telling run to beat Manzoor by a length with Summer Lightning a little over two lengths back in third. As Mr Potia led Mansoor Beg in, Khade was his usual, inscrutable self. It was only later that he let it be known that he had plenty in hand and with a longer time to recover from the race he had an outstanding chance of upsetting the star filly in the Derby.
A week later, Gamble For Love duly won the Indian Oaks to emulate Her Majesty’s feat of bagging the first three Classics. Bren Duffy rode the filly instead of her usual jockey Kheem Singh and Irish jockey had no alarms, winning easily by two lengths. Her awesome record entitled Gamble For Love to go into the Indian Derby as an odds on favourite where she was re-united with Kheem Singh. The Derby, however, came within a week of the Oaks and as has been shown several times since, what the Oaks takes out of a filly is never known till she takes her chance in the Derby.
On 26 January, the Constitution was formally adopted and India became a republic. Three days later, the Indian Derby was run for the first time on a Sunday, the previous six runnings having all taken place on a Saturday. When Talib sent out three winners in the earlier part of the day, even more money rolled onto Kheem Singh’s mount and Gamble For Love was a warm favourite at 10 to 8 on. Not that Mansoor Beg and Pandu Khade did not have their supporters; the colt was a clear second choice on the books at 2 to 1. Of the remaining 13 runners, only one — Miss Doreen Saulez’s Masquerade, a half-bred like Mansoor Beg — was quoted in single figures. Gamble For Love, true to her style, raced prominently when the field was despatched and seemed well within herself in front as they came past the First Enclosure. All the while, Khade had nursed Mansoor Beg with utmost patience and he produced the colt at the right moment for the final showdown with the filly. Front running takes a lot out of a horse and the filly had been on the boil since the start of the season. Game as she was, she did not flinch from the fight but just couldn’t find that extra burst. After a few strides together, the sheepskin nose band of Mansoor Beg was clearly in the front. Gamble For Love and Kheem Singh then knew that it was all over. Khade did not have to really get into the colt to win by a length and a half and he was accorded a warm reception as he was led in by Mr Potia, attired in traditional costume.
Mansoor Beg became first of the three half-breds — Canny Scot and Fair Wood are the other two — to win the Indian Derby and the first Sunday Derby also provided the only instance of two half-breds occupying the first two places.
What Mansoor Beg did to Gamble For Love, Summer Lightning did to Mansoor Beg in the Indian St Leger where Shamu Chavan allowed the Derby winner — and an even money favourite — to have the first run and then swooped on him. Summer Lightning, the better stayer, won by a length. Mansoor Beg had one more race that season, finishing third to Pippy and Tisco in Aga Khan’s Spring Cup.
Mr Potia, a timber and furniture merchant operating from Mazgaon, kept Mansoor Beg in training over the next four years, racing him sparingly and winning the Brabourne Cup — where the younger Indian Derby winner Gold Street was only third — on the New Year’s day of 1953. Pandu Khade was associated with all the five wins that Mansoor Beg knotched up during his career. Over the next 25 years, Mr. Potia always had a horse or two running in his colours and the fillies Irish Rose, Port O’Rose and Butterfly which he raced and bred from come to mind readily. It was a son of Butterfly who was to provide him with his second winner of the Indian Derby — Mansoor with Khade again in the saddle — in 1973. No owner, racing on so small a scale, can boast of two Indian Derby winners.
H R Somekh, who trained Mansoor Beg, came into racing as an owner in partnership with S M Khemara. The Arab horse Watchmaker provided the duo with their first win at Mysore in 1932. Somekh, who started training in Mumbai during the 1935-36 season, never had a large string in his yard and the most prominent of his owners was Mr G N Musry — of Commoner fame — who raced in western India as Mr Diamond. (Commoner, the first winner of the Indian Triple Crown was, of course, trained by Sion F Nessim). Post Mansoor Beg, Somekh continued training for Mr Potia while Mr. Abid H Doctor also entrusted his few horses to him. The last winner that Somekh saddled was King Solomon, a Pratapsinh half-brother to Commoner, in 1959.
Mansoor Beg provided Pandu Khade with the first of his four winners of the Indian Derby. The Kolhapurian had become the first Indian jockey to ride a Classic winner when he had steered Mr. R.T. Wandrekar’s Doorani to win the Indian St. Leger in 1947-48 but the following year Kheem Singh had upstaged him by winning the Indian Derby on Balam. Khade was undoubtedly a great jockey and as the time has gone by, he has acquired a legendary status. There were Indian jockeys before him who had made their mark. In the nineteenth century, Jaffer was often in the limelight and he stole the thunder by riding Kingcraft to a victory in the Viceroy’s Cup for owner-trainer Kelly Maitland. Then, there were the Western India — always in the forefront when it came to Indianisation of racing — champions Heeroo Balloo and Purtoo Singh. The Aga Khan usually put up non-foreign jockeys on his horses so that the likes of A K Obaid, Kamad and Oomer Khan had their days in the sun but they were probably Arabs. It was left to Pandu Khade, however, to really capture the public imagination.
Khade made his riding debut at Pune in 1940 in Maharaja of Kolhapur’s colours astride the Arab horse Misbah-al-Muluk. A year later, Kolhapur introduced Shamu Chavan. Fearless riders both of them, the foreign jockeys often referred to them as “Orange Devils”, orange being the Kolhapur colour. Khade rode his first winner on Mrs J S D’Siva’s Kemal Pasha for trainer G.N.G. Walles and his thousandth on Mr. P B Mody’s Mihir for trainer N V Patange in March 1976. By then Parsuji Shanker, senior to Khade by a year and M Jagdish had already passed the 1000 milestone. Shanker never quite made his mark on the All-India stage while Jagdish, undoubtedly not inferior to Khade in any way, came into his own rather late in his career when riding for R R Byramji.
Khade’s dozen Indian Classic winners include four Indian Derbys — Mansoor Beg (1950), Balchand (1957), Alijah (1961) and Mansoor (1973). Possibly, his greatest riding feat was when winning the Indian St. Leger on Pimpernel. Jagdish also has four Indian Derby wins to his credit and only Pesi Shroff betters the duo with his eight. Khade was the Champion Jockey at Mumbai ten times, four times at Pune and once during the Bangalore Summer season.
The powerful Gwalior stable utilised Khade’s expertise frequently. The late Maj V M Lad, Gwalior’s perennial trainer, had an uneasy relationship with Khade for the two were never temperamentally compatible. But Maj Lad was second to none in his admiration for the maestro’s riding skill and always maintained that Alijah’s victory in the Indian Derby was “sheer Khade magic”. Aljah, a brilliant miler, was going beyond his tether in the Blue Riband and the trainer simply marvelled at the way Khade nursed the colt and saw him get the distance. When asked what aspects of Khade’s jockeyship he admired most, Maj Lad was succinct. “Intelligence, balance and judgement of pace”. On another occasion he said, “Pandu not only knew how well his own mount was going at any stage of the race, he could tell you how well most of his principal rivals were travelling.”
Khade was last seen in silks in January 1978. After hanging up his boots and packing his whip, he had a tenure as the Principal of Apprentice Jockeys’ School at Hyderabad. Later, till he died some years ago, he always made it a point to be at Mahalakshmi on the Derby day.
Summer Lightning may have prevented Philosopher from making a clean sweep of the Indian Classics that year but his St. Leger victory enabled Renala Stud to do so for, like Gamble For Love and Mansoor Beg, Summer Lightning was born at that nursery. This was the very high noon of Renala. Of the 33 Indian Classics run upto that time, Renala’s tally of 15 Classics — four Indian Derbys included — towered above the rest. In 1950-51, Renala bagged three more Indian Classics to close with a final score of 18. The Classic clean sweep has been recorded only twice in the last 60 years — by Kolhapur Stud in 1965-66 and Yeravada Stud in 1976-77.
After the Partition, Renala found itself in Pakistan — probably to the relief of Indian breeders ! — and the Renala-breds were not seen on the Indian tracks. Renala Stud was estblished in 19103 by Maj Dennis Vanrennen, the son of an Australian horse trader. Located about an hour’s drive south-west of Lahore in the fertile Ravi-Sutluj doab, it was an ideal horse breeding area. Initially, the stud started out as a remount stud, catering to the needs of the Indian Army. The bloodstock division was added later on a small scale in but it grew gradually so that by early 1930s, there were 160 remount mares and 50 Thoroughbred mares at Renala.
The stud was divided into sections of 50 mares and two stallions and initially, range breeding — or ‘stallions at liberty’ — was practised even for Thoroughbreds. Hand held coverings were introduced when the Indian Stud Book was in the process of being established so as to make the Renala-breds eligible for entry into it. Each section had its stables in the centre and was surrounded by 16 paddocks none of which was less than six acres in area.

Maj Vanrennen’s vision and the excellent results that Renala Stud achieved mark him out as one of the greatest Indian breeders. In the pamphlet which advertised Renala’s first Thoroughbred crop, the doyen’s vision was clearly spelt out –
– “The aim of Renala Stud is to demonstrate the capability of India to develop her own breed of bloodstock, similar as the leading countries of the world, and the British Dominions, other than India have done; also her capability of producing her own stallions, and saddle horses of a type most suited for use in India and tropical countries.”
Unfortunately, Maj Vanrennen did not live to see his vision being vindicated on the track for he died while on a holiday in France in 1939, four years before the Indian Classics were first run. His wife, Isabel, managed the stud after his death and the glittering Renala success in Indian Classics was a testimony to Maj Vanrennen’s forward thinking. In the chaos that followed the Partition, Renala Stud was attacked and Mrs Isabel Vanrennen was killed. But her daughter — Mrs Taylor — took over the reins in such daunting circumstances and Renala Stud continued to be in the forefront of Pakistan breeding for long.
Maj Vanrennen practised what he preached and that bit about “producing her own stallions” in his vision statement was endorsed by Philosopher. Sheridan — gifted by Sir Victor Sassoon to Renala — and Short Hand –purchased from Mr. Edward Esmonds — were the stalwart stallions which gave Renala its pre-eminence. Philosopher was a son of Sheridan with very mediocre racing performance. He started racing only after he had turned 4 and managed just three ordinary wins from 13 starts. Maj Vanrennen, however, was impressed by his physique and presence. Philosopher was retired to stud to stand alongside his sire. What’s more, he was given all the support to succeed. And how well did Philosopher repay that confidence!
He started off with Philanthropist, only the second Indian-bred to win the King’s Cup at Kolkata till then; then came Shan-E-Hind (Maharajadhiraj Jammu and Kashmir’s Gold Cup and 3rd in Indian 2000 Guineas), Gamble For Love, Mansoor Beg, Piarehind (2nd in Indian Oaks), National Flag (2nd in Indian St. Leger), Ripple (Pakistan Triple Crown), Rehber (Pakistan Derby), Philtoi, Khan Bahadur and others. A daughter of his produced the Indian Oaks winner Titwillow while another got Ethics II (Eve Champion Trophy). His record as a broodmare sire was even better in Pakistan with Leonardo (Pakistan Derby), Village Dancer (Pakistan Derby), Lorina (Pakistan Derby), Lavender (Pakistan Derby), Lunaiere, The Pheasant, Winfair and Sweet Willow to his credit.
Mansoor Beg’s dam did not win in England where she was denied an entry into the General Stud Book because her broodmare sire, Prospector had a flawed pedigree and she was to be found only in Prior’s Half-Bred Stud Book. The line continued in India, somewhat dormant, till it suddenly burst into life in 1980s with Deep Water Blues (Calcutta Oaks), Byerly Brigade (Deccan Derby), Cordon Bleu (Indian Derby) and Scintillation (Bangalore St. Leger). The 1990s saw further laurels being garnered with the unbeaten Continual (Indian 2000 Guineas) and Cape Star (Bangalore Oaks). In the new millennium, it has gone a bit quiet once again. (Incidentally, the living descendants of New Crop[NSB] and Nectar[NSB], were promoted to Thoroughbred status at the 1989 meeting of the International Stud Book Committee.)
PAST THE POST. There is an interesting anecdote concerning Mansoor Beg. When the lots were rolling before 1948 Auction sale at Mumbai, trainer Talib’s astute eye had picked out a strapping chestnut colt in the Renala ring and he recommended him to his brothers-in-law, the Ahmedbhoy brothers. On the morning of the Sale, the brothers went over to Talib’s place to take him to the Sale. Their sister, Mrs. Talib, persuaded her brothers to have a bit of breakfast and “just one more kheema paratha, please” meant that their departure was delayed. Traffic on the way added to the woe and as they rushed to the paddock, they were mortified to see Lot No. 3 being paraded. Lot No 1, the New Crop[NSB] colt — and apple of Talib’s eye — had already been sold to Mr F M Potia! Denied their first choice — but determined to procure a Philosopher — they bid successfully for the Nectar[NSB] filly which they named Gamble For Love ! 

– Major S Nargolkar (Retd)

FEBRUARY-MARCH 2010