Light The Night lights up Lahore races in record time

LAHORE: Four-year-old bay filly Light The Night virtually lit the Racecourse while powering to victory in the feature event in a record fastest time during the Lahore Summer Meeting here on Sunday.

Owned by Shahid Hussain, the filly from famous sire Assassi revived some of the old memories of the progenies of Assassi when she established a new record by clocking 59 2/5 seconds over the 1,000 metres in the , the Headingley Plate, class six Division I & II event, bettering by a fraction the previous record of 59 3/5 held jointly by bay colts Chan (2006) and Punjabi (2008) and chestnut filly Platinum Key (2010).

It may be recalled that Assassi’s colt Assassin, bred at the Baig stud farm, holds the record of fastest times in the 2,000 metres and 2,400 metres, respectively. And now the 1,000 metres record is held by the daughter of Assassi which is a rare distinction for the sire.

Trained by Haji Abid Hussain, Light The Night was steered by A. Raza while beating bay colt That Man Again by four lengths with bay colt Dil Da Jani third and chestnut filly Dosti, fourth among eleven runners in this fifth race of the day.

A race later, in the supporting event, rank outsider bay filly Proposal caused a big upset defeating dark-bay horse Anchor easily.

Favourite bay filly Big Confidence hopelessly shattered the confidence of her owner to finish third with bay colt King Of Bhakkar fourth in a field of 13 runners.

Owned by Hamza Khan and ridden by Shafqat, Proposal was trained by Amjad Ali II. A good day racing was however, marred by an ugly and zigzag riding display on chestnut colt Lucky Game by Tahir Abbas.

The 40 to 100 favourite colt Lucky Game won the third race, first going wide and then coming back towards the rails seriously disturbing the running of bay gelding Lucky Sohna and filly Buy And Sell placed second and third, respectively.

The riders of both the disturbed horses lodged objections against the winner for sharply crossing and causing disturbance in their running violating the Rules Of Racing.

The Lahore Race Club (LRC) stewards upheld the objection and disqualified Lucky Game from the race.

The race-goers have appealed to the LRC stewards to take stern action against Tahir Abbas for dangerous riding which could have been resulted in some serious accident to nip the evil in the bud.

Results:

THE HEADINGLEY PLATE CLASS VII DIV IV — 900M:

Princess Resham (Chaudhry Mohammad Ijaz) 8-6, Qadeer Ahmed 1; Phantom 7-12, Imran Hussain 2; Kiss My Cash 7-4, Sunny Babu 3; Kit Kat 9-0, Allah Rakha 4. Won by Head, 2½ L, 2 L. Time one minute zero seconds. Winner trained by Nadeem Raza Khan.

THE HEADINGLEY PLATE CLASS VII DIV III & IV — 900M:

Mah—e-Doura (Abid Mahmood Siddiqui) 8-8, M. Hanif 1; Raj Rawal 7-12, Waheed Baran 2; Jazba 8-8, Aftab Chaudhry 3; Baby Doll 8-6, Riaz Hussain 4. Won by 2 L, ½ L, ¾ L. Time 57 2/5 seconds. Winner trained by Abdullah.

THE HEADINGLEY PLATE CLASS VII DIV III — 900M:

Lucky Sohna (Haji Asghar Ali) 8-8, Shakeel Mahmood 1; Buy And Sell 7-12, Sunny Babu 2; Gold Medal 8-0, Shafqat 3; Bridge On The Gap 8-4, Taimur Hasan 4. (Lucky Game disqualified after winning the race). Won by Objection, ¾ L, ¾ L. Time 57 2/5 seconds. Winner trained by Aleemuddin.

THE HEADINGLEY PLATE CLASS VII DIV I & II — 900M:

Chand Pari (Ata-ur-Rehman) 8-6, M. Hanif 1; Aboor 8-0, Aftab Chaudhry 2; Honey The Prince 8-0, Tahir Abbas 2; Magic King 8-0, Alam Sher 4. Won by 4½ L, 3 L, 5 L. Time 56 1/5 seconds. Winner trained by Latif Butt.

THE HEADINGLEY PLATE CLASS VI DIV I & II — 1,000M:

Light The Night (Shahid Hussain) 8-0, A. Raza 1; That Man Again 8-2, M. Jameel 2; Dil Da Jani 7-10, Shakeel Mahmood 3; Dosti 8-6, Tahir Abbas 4. Won by 4 L, 2 L, 1 L. Time 59 2/5 seconds. Winner trained by Haji Abid Hussain.

THE HEADINGLEY PLATE CLASS VI DIV III — 1,000M:

Proposal (Hamza Khan) 7-8, Shafqat 1; Anchor 9-2, Tahir Abbas 2; Big Confidence 8-10, Shakeel Mahmood 3; King Of Bhakkar 8-12, M. Hanif 4.
Won by 3½ L, 3 L, ½ L. Time one minute 1 2/5 seconds. Winner trained by Amjad Ali II.

Published in Dawn, May 18th, 2015

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