Zuccarelli wins Pune Derby in style

Zuccarelli, running in the colours of Khushroo Dhunjibhoy, posted a magnificent victory in the Pune Derby (Gr 1), the feature event of the concluding day of the Pune racing season. The son of Circle Of Bliss out of Western Aristocrat shattered the existing course record when he clocked 2m:02.29s for the trip of ten furlongs. Zuccarelli was trained by champion trainer Pesi Shroff and ridden by veteran jockey P S Chouhan, both of whom finished at the top of the tables in their professional categories. Shroff and Chouhan added two more points each on Sunday to their tally, finishing the truncated version of the Pune season with 21 and 15 wins respectively. Jockey A Sandesh, who rode four winners on the Sunday card, tied with Chouhan for the top spot. P S Chouhan positioned Zuccarelli in fourth or fifth berth even as stable mate Souza (P S Kaviraj up) shot ahead like a scalded cat to open a long gap over the rest of the field. Approaching the final turn Chouhan quickly improved Zuccarelli, but so did David Egan, who was specially flown in by the Poonawallas to ride A Star Is Born. However, on straightening up, Zuccarelli unleashed such a powerful run that A Star Is Born was unable to match strides with him despite Egans desperate efforts. At the wire, the winner spared 2-3/4 lengths to the runner up, erasing the previous course record set by Selfie Star three years ago. Earlier in the day, another new record timing was set when Arcadia, the other successful combination of Shroff and Chouhan, won the Pioneer Plate after a thrilling duel with Giant Star (Neeraj Rawal up). Arcadia clocked 1m:48.88s for the nine-furlong trip, slicing off nearly 1.2 seconds off the old figure.