Ramu's Riders

#5 Serenity (B Prakash up) finishes second to Ramu's Superior Quest (A Imran Khan up) in the Gool S Poonawalla Million on Sunday at Mahalaxmi (Pic: RS Gupta)

The close finish of the Gool S Poonawalla Million on Sunday at Mahalaxmi had a special dimension to it. Winning jockey A Imran Khan on Superior Quest donned the same silks that losing jockey B Prakash himself proudly wore until only a month ago.

Whenever Indian racing’s history will be chronicled for posterity, there will have to be a thick section on the colourful and intriguing personality of Dr MAM Ramaswamy, and surely a special chapter on his riders!

India’s top horse owner for over 35 years—‘Ramu’, as Dr Ramaswamy is called in racing circles—has owned thousands of horses and employed hundreds of riders when running his racing empire. Ramu’s horse sense must be termed legendary since he consistently picked the best horses in his quest to dominate the Classics scene at every racetrack.

However, when it came to riders he employed not only the best, but also the worst of the lot—and it was part of a well-thought-out stragety. The shrewd operator was the first to understand and exploit the racing truth that a horse’s performance improved dramatically—sometimes by several lengths—in the hands of best jockey, especially after being ridden by the worst jockey in last run. It is widely believed that he financed his huge racing operations by cleaning out bookies who repeatedly failed to fathom how much improvement Ramu’s horses would show after his top rider got on them.

Andrew Beyer, world-renowned American handicapper and author, has made a statement in one of his books that a good and a bad rider can make a difference of only a couple of lengths to a horse’s performance. Ramu will have a good laugh if Andrew ever meets him and says so, because he has made a fortune all his life by exploiting this fallacy.

It is rumoured that Ramu was often suspicious of his riders, and sources close to Ramu’s former riders lend credence to this view. But Jagdish, his first big-ticket rider, was perhaps the exception.

In 1970’s, the legendary jockey put the Ramaswamy yard on a roll, winning big races at every center, including the Indian Turf Invitation Cup at Mahalaxmi with Own Opinion in 1979 when three of Ramu’s horses orchestrated a superbly conceived strategy to trick the genius of Karl Umrigar astride Royal Tern.

After Jagdish retired, the stable did not have any star rider until Robin Corner was engaged in the ‘eighties. Corner had an illustrious stint with Ramu before being unceremoniously dumped after favourite Generous Patron lost the Bangalore summer Derby to the Pesi Shroff-ridden Littleover in 1993.

Vasant Shinde then rode the racing baron’s horses for a couple of seasons. An apocryphal story has it that Shinde had some urgent business in his hometown Matheran on a particular day when a Ramu horse was to run an important race. Shinde honestly believed the horse had no chance and said so, before leaving for Matheran. The horse was ridden by YS Srinath, another talented, upcoming rider at the time, who either won or lost narrowly (the storyteller was not too sure), putting a huge question mark over Vasant Shinde’s knowledge or intentions—or perhaps both—in Ramu’s mind that was never really in the habit of blindly trusting riders.

Satish Narredu, already riding for Ramu in the south but never thought to be a big-league rider until then, started getting most of Ramu’s prime mounts and shot into limelight. He also won the first Indian Derby for Ramu in his famous silks ‘Gold, brown belt’ astride Amazing Bay in 1996, fulfilling a life-long dream that had eluded the racing baron for more than two decades. Satish became a private trainer to Ramu after hanging up his riding boots, but things went sour after Satish failed to give results. The parting must have surely been full of bad blood, because I once saw Ramu giving away the trophy to the winning owner at Bangalore (I think the horse was Lindsay), but ignoring Satish Narredu even for a formal handshake though he was the one who trained the winner.

Strangely, when it comes to jockeys there are more stories of Ramu’s extra-ordinary generosity than his spiteful behavior with one or two of them. Ramu not only paid his champion riders handsomely, but also took very good care of his smaller riders, work riders and the staff. Sickness, injury or a marriage in the family, Ramu’s boys could count on their boss’s kindheartedness. The man surely knew how to command loyalty instead of demanding it.

It’s a daring move to keep hundreds of horses in training every year, year after year, and make the venture pay for itself. But when you listen to the countless stories of his generosity, you realize that Ramu not only dared, but he cared—and more importantly, he shared! Not many horse owners can put claim to that statement.

B Prakash may turn out to be the last big-league rider employed by the racing baron, unless of course Ramu revives his personal interest in racing and hangs around for another 5-7 years. Prakash stands at the end of a distinguished list of Indian legends like Jagdish, Robin Corner, Vasant Shinde, Malesh and Satish Narredu, and foreigners like Willie Carson, Jimmy Fortune, Richard Hughes & Colm O’Donoghue, all of whom have figured on the exalted list of ‘Ramu’s riders’.

Prakash also enjoys a distinction that is quite unique among Ramu’s riders. He is the only rider who not only won Ramu’s confidence—but also his love—by his hard work and sincerity to such a degree that Ramu started treating him almost like his son. Even their parting of ways last month was reported to be amicable. Therefore those in the know of the emotional bond between Prakash and Ramu were eager to watch the rider taking on a Ramu horse in a close finish as he was expected to do at some point in time.

On Sunday the moment came, and to his credit, even while losing, B Prakash showed that his professional commitments run much deeper than his emotional bonds.