Cooji Katrak saddles four winners on the Sunday card

Unstoppable!: Trainer Cooji Katrak had a quadruple on Sunday's Pune card. He (extreme left) is seen here leading in Hereafter (C Rajendra up) along with owner Haresh Mehta [Pic:rwitc.com]

The revival of a phenomenon called trainer Cooji Katrak continues to intrigue me.

The man has been maligned and slandered like no trainer in this country has been. He has faced suspensions and exile, had to live through ignominy--and all this in silence and solitude.

"I was framed," were the only three words he used to describe his past [check out this interview], and refused to talk further.

"I don't have the gift of the gab," he had also said in the same interview, "so I can never win an argument or convince anyone," before adding, "but I know how to train horses and get the best out of them. I would rather win races than arguments."

Sunday's quadruple at the Pune racetrack with Sea Treasure, Hereafter, Sea Ruler & Versaki not only advertised his consistency (unlike jockeys, trainers have rarely dominated both Mumbai & Pune seasons), but also made him darling of the racing crowd because all his four horses were well-supported favourites--and still delivered the goods, a trait which racing public nowadays values more than anything else.

And that brings me to the point I want to make. If someone had told me a couple of years back that the most popular trainer in western India is going to be Cooji Katrak, I would have laughed it off.

But then, as I said in the beginning, this revival of a phenomenon called trainer Cooji Katrak continues to intrigue me.

Interview with Cooji Katrak

Awesome twosome: Champion trainer Cooji Katrak (left) receiving trophy from another champion, Dr Cyrus S Poonawalla, chairman, RWITC, whose Poonawalla stud farm emerged as leading breeders for the just concluded Mahalaxmi racing season (Pic: RS Gupta)

Like most racing folks, Cooji Katrak—some used to call him 'cagey' Katrak—was a mystery to me too. Until a couple of years ago, all I knew about him was hearsay--nothing first-hand. 

So when I went to meet him for this interview, I was severely shocked to fiind a very mild-mannered--almost shy and timid--man, who was ill at ease for stepping into the limelight as the new champion, and made no effort to hide the discomfort.

But once the questions started rolling in, he turned into an interviewer's delight. Here are excerpts from the interview:

When did you decide to become horse trainer? 

I know this is going to sound a bit strange, but I decided to become a horse trainer when I was a kid. I was studying in fifth standard at the Cathedral & John Connon school in Fort, Bombay, and I was so obsessed with horses, I used to rush back from school, quickly wash up and change before my uncle, who was a horse trainer, left for the stables in the evening. 

Oh, you already had a trainer in the family? 

Dara Pandole was my maternal uncle. He was a renowned trainer. In fact, horses and racing have been a family obsession. My other uncle, N E D Pandole, owned some fine horses which were trained by Rashid Byramji. I was myself an amateur rider and had won a race during the Gymkhana meeting. 

So you joined Dara Pandole as an assistant? 

Yes, but I put in just about a year as official assistant before taking up licence in 1977, because I had always been associated with horses and learning all the time from my uncle and his peers. 

Who were your first owners?

(smiles) When I began, I had only two owners and 6 horses. Mr Pallon Shroff, father of the twins—Dinshaw & Munchi—was my first owner; the other was Mr P B Mody. 

Your first winner...? 

My first winner was Mr Mody’s Mihir.  And I finished my first season with 3 winners. 

Two owners, six horses and three winners, and what’s the equation today? 

(laughs) Oh, now I have 20 owners & 80 horses—but of course that includes unraced babies too. And you know I had 35 winners this season. 

This season turned out to be just great for you… 

True. I started with a bang. I had a quadruple on the second day itself, and then never looked back. No doubt I worked very hard, but you know in this business you have to also be lucky for the hard work to pay off consistently. 

And you were crowned the champion trainer… 

I think championship just happened along the way—it was never my goal, and surely not my focus. But I am happy to have won the trophy, and I am happier I won it in a season during which my owners picked up more than Rs two crore in stakes money alone. We won five or six "million" races, two grade 1 races and a couple of grade 2 races too. God was kind to me, I couldn’t have asked for more. You know some events in life bring in a special kind of joy, like winning your first Indian Classic—winning championship is something akin to that. Coincidentally, I won my first Indian Classic, the 2000 Guineas, with Vesuvius owned by Dr Cyrus Poonawalla, and it was he who gave me the championship trophy the other day. 

What’s your training secret? 

Hard work, coupled with minute attention to every single individual horse. Every horse is a different riddle. You have to design different work program—even different feed. And yes, I take my babies very seriously. I believe in giving them a feel of the grass under their feet, not just work on sand. They mature better that way, I strongly believe.

Would you like to talk about the rough period in your profession when you faced suspension? You have never publicly talked about it, never explained. 

I believe explanation is pointless—because your friends don’t need it, and your enemies don’t believe it. I don’t want to talk about it even now, except stating a fact that I was framed. I got my licence back only after the court vindicated me. 

Would you recommend the trainer’s profession to anyone? 

Not if the person doesn’t love horses! You must be madly in love with horses—that’s the first condition. And you also must be willing to work hard, real hard. It’s a hard life and a tough career. It is another matter that if you really love them, it doesn’t feel like hard work—because then it’s labour of love. 

Exciting season ends

Jockey Daniel Grant (center), flanked by his girlfriend and Dr Cyrus Poonawalla, chairman, RWITC, while receiving the Champion Jockey trophy  [pic: rwitc.com]

The last time Cooji Katrak won the champion trainer's title he was in South Africa. Yesterday when he won it for the second time, he was on ‘top-of-the-world’." 

“Yes, it’s a special kind of joy, like a top-of-the-world feeling,” he said to MiD DAY, after receiving the trophy form club chairman Dr Cyrus Poonawalla, and added, "I am especially pleased because I won more than two crore rupees in stake money for my owners." 

Katrak, who scored a double on the concluding day, topped the trainers' tally with 35 wins, while erstwhile champion Pesi Shroff finished runner up with 31 winners. Jockey Daniel Grant, who had a hand in most of Katrak's victories this season, picked up the champion jockey title, and the race club, as a special gesture, had presented the trophy to him a day before as he had to fly to his home country to fulfil his riding engagements there. 

Apprentice rider Nikhil Parmar picked up two titles, that of the leading apprentice and also the one for the leading apprentice with allowance. He rode 9 winners which included a hat-trick on the April 5 card. The leading owner prize went to Dr Vijay Mallya, while the Poonawalla stud farms emerged as the leading stud farm. 

"It has been our best season ever," said Vivek Jain, chairman of stewards and head of marketing, RWITC, speaking to MiD DAY, "it was great racing all the way--record sponsorships, higher attendance and betting--and most important, much improved media coverage and visibility for the sport." 

He added, "I am happy we managed such a show despite a delayed start on account of the horses's health, and weather concerns about heat and humidity that couldn’t be wished away. There was a special flavor of energy to all Sundays that took the racing experience to a new level."