The well supported Mountain Jewel landed the G1 Deccan Derby at Hyderabad on Sunday for trainer Prasanna Kumar. Sent off at an SP of 6/1, she appeared to be well drawn in stall 1, but a slow start, which saw her take the longest time to reach the mile pole (27.01s from the gate) left her with a lot to do. As you can see from the replay below, at the halfway point, she was as much as 1.06s behind the early leader (Mindful) with 1,000m to run. However, once the field turned for home, Mountain Jewel appeared to sprout wings as she swung wide into the centre of the track to make her challenge under Antosh Raj. Mountain Jewel recorded the fastest 8th and 9th furlongs in the race (12.18 and 12.09s) as she made relentless progress to get on terms with the leaders at the 200m pole. From that point, it became a 2 horse race, but Mountain Jewel came out on top in a driving contest with Red Bishop as her superior stride frequency in the final furlong, an average of 2.27 per second, saw her home. She was only 3rd in the G3 Deccan Fillies Championship Stakes in August, but she was certainly unlucky that day as she made good late headway, running the fastest final furlong in 12.47s and recording a run-out speed of 34.16 mph, over 1 mph faster than anything else in the field. Beaten by just 0.42s, Kuldeep Singh got the fractions wrong on that occasion, but she has now more than made amends under Antosh Raj to land this Group 1 prize. Her jockey did actually receive a fine of Rs.2000 for allowing his mount to drift in at the top of the straight and Mountain Jewel did inconvenience Knight Regent at that point, but given that there was 2.35s between the pair at the line, it did not directly affect the result. This daughter of Deauville came in to this race with a rating 57 and it appeared that she had a lot to find with the runner-up, even when the figures were adjusted for her 1.5 kilo sex allowance, but given the way the race panned out, she had to overcome some significant obstacles to get her head in front and was a deserved winner as a result.

Red Bishop can certainly be considered to be an unlucky loser. His top speed figure of 39.33 mph was just 0.04 mph slower than the figure recorded by Mountain Jewel and his run-out speed (33.73 mph) and final furlong split (12.97s) were faster than the winner. The pair pulled over 7 lengths clear of everything else at the line and in any other year, he may well have run to the required level to win the Deccan Derby. However, having been in front of Mountain Jewel as they turned for home and had the benefit of the rail to run against in the straight, there can be no real excuses for the gelding, who was simply beaten by a better horse on the day.