By Asher Butt and Abid Sultan
There has been a mixed but revealing day here at the Lahore Race Club with all having tasted predicted and surprising outcomes.
Book favs hit 2 / 5
My favs hit 1 / 5
Fluke winners 1
Upset winners 2
My frame hits R1 R2 R4
Race-by-race results
| Race | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Book fav | My fav |
| R1 · Maiden Div VII 900m |
1Talent Again | 2Mirza Prince | 3Akbar Prince | Talent Again ✓ | Talent Again ✓ |
| R2 · Div VI&VII 900m |
1Thunder Pride | 2Zaman Sahib | 3American Star | Zaman Sahib — 2nd | Dani Princess — out |
| R3 · Div I&II 1100m |
1Rafah | 2Falco | 3Moni Prince | Rafah ✓ | Moni Prince — 3rd |
| R4 · Div III&IV 1000m |
1Imperius | 2Safe Bet | 3Be A Man | Safe Bet — 2nd | Be A Man — 3rd ✓ |
| R5 · Div V 1000m |
1Singhar | 2Piyari/Dogar photo | 3/4Roxy | Fakhar-e-Sardar — out | Fakhar-e-Sardar — out |
Selection hit map
R1 Both favs won ✓My place 2nd ✓My fluke 3rd ✓
R2 My fav out My fluke won ✓ Book fav 2nd ✓
R3 My fav 3rd Book fav won ✓ My fluke framed ✓
R4 My fav 3rd ✓Book fav 2nd My place 3rd ✓
R5 Both favs out Book place 2nd My fluke 2nd ✓
Result type
R1 Both favs won
R2 Fluke won
R3 Book fav won
R4 Upset — Imperius
R5 Upset — Singhar
— Two favourites, two upsets and a fluke, with the most notable outcome being Race 1’s clean sweep of all three positions by my selections. Here is the full verdict:
Race 1 — Division VII Maiden (900m): The day’s cleanest result and the most satisfying for the weight-based system. Talent Again (9-0) won as the agreed favourite, Mirza Prince (8-12, my place) ran second, and Akbar Prince (8-4, my fluke) completed the frame in third. All three of my selections landed in the correct positional order — a rare clean sweep at 900m in a maiden race, the division that has most consistently resisted weight logic throughout the meeting cycle. The book’s choice of Grace (7-8) as place — conceding 16 pounds to the top weight — was entirely unplaced, confirming that the 6-horse field was small enough for weight authority to assert itself clearly.
Race 2 — Division VI & VII (900m): Thunder Pride, my fluke and the book’s fluke, won outright — its second frame finish in consecutive meetings (second in Race 1 on Day 5, winner today). Zaman Sahib (book’s favourite, my fluke within my hierarchy) ran second. American Star completed the frame in third as a surprise from 7-10. My favourite Dani Princess (9-0) was entirely unplaced — the meeting’s most consistent top-weight failure at 900m continues. The result confirms that Thunder Pride is building genuine momentum and should no longer be treated as a fluke selection.
Race 3 — Division I & II (1100m): Rafah (7-12), the book’s favourite at the bottom of the weight range, won convincingly over 1100m in the senior division — beating Falco into second and my favourite Moni Prince (9-0) into third. This is now the clearest possible statement about Division I & II at LRC: the book’s form-based bottom-weight selections are winning even at 1100m in the most senior division, defeating 9-0 top-weight horses with regularity. Construct Craft (my place) was unplaced — a disappointing miss for one of the meeting’s most reliable horses. Falco running second and Moni Prince third means two of the nine runners from outside the top-weight group filled the podium.
Race 4 — Division III & IV (1000m): Imperius won under rider Abdullah Amir — a genuine upset over four joint 9-0 horses. This is the most analytically significant result of the day: four horses sharing the 9-0 ceiling — Imperius, Dar Princess, Counter Strike, Alaska — and not one of them won. Imperius, carrying 9-0, did win, but as the designated “upset” horse it appears the other three 9-0 allocations all failed. Safe Bet (book’s favourite, 8-4) ran second and Be A Man (my favourite/place, 8-10) ran third. My selections covered second and third cleanly while the book’s favourite also framed — the frame was largely correctly predicted, just not the winner within it.
Race 5 — Division V (1000m): Singhar produced the day’s final upset — beating both the agreed favourite Fakhar-e-Sardar (9-0) and the book’s fluke Dogar Choice (both my and the book’s selections) entirely out of the frame. Piyari and Dogar Choice went to a photo finish for second place — my fluke Dogar Choice framing in that photo. Roxy completed the podium. Fakhar-e-Sardar (9-0), which I backed emphatically as the banker of the closing race, was completely absent. This is a painful miss — Fakhar-e-Sardar has now failed to win in two consecutive Winter Meeting appearances despite carrying proven credentials and top weight.
Day 6 summary: The most balanced day of the meeting — Race 1 delivered the cleanest analytical result of the entire Winter cycle, while Races 2 and 5 reconfirmed that 900m and 1000m at LRC in Division V and below remain resistant to top-weight prediction regardless of how compelling the form history appears. Rafah’s 1100m win in Race 3 in Division I & II over a 9-0 horse is the Winter Meeting’s definitive statement: at LRC, form and pace win races at every distance, and the weight allocation — however commanding — is a signal of ability rather than a guarantee of conversion.
