Temerity’s record win

Temerity, this year’s Champion Horse, having won the Indian Turf Invitation Cup in a record time, earlier won The Villoo Poonawalla Indian Oaks (Ladies Derby), and thereby won her owners — lawyer Berjis Desai and Shyam Ruia, owner of Raptakoss Brett, Rs 1.74 crores in total stakes. As reported in MumbaiMirror (MM), March 15, 2017, "In a delectable and meaty narrative, Desai recalls Temerity’s journey right from the moment he sets his eyes on her insipid looking mother Narmina, a mare hailing from the Aga Khan Stud Farm, when she stepped into the ring for one of the auctions conducted in 2012 by Europe’s famous Bloodstock auction house Goffs and till she was crowned as Champion Horse of the year at Bangalore…” notes the MM article.

Desai who unabashedly calls himself a "rag-picker,” when it comes to buying pregnant mares for breeding purposes, related how his meagre budget of € 6,000 (Rs 4,24,000) went awry, and Ruia, owner of Equus Stud Farm, allowed him to up the bid to € 9,000 (Rs 6,35,000). The landing cost for Narmina was around Rs 10 lakhs, but Ruia refused to house the mare at Equus as he found her "ugly,” so she was shunted to Khushroo Dhunjibhoy’s Nanoli Stud Farm where Temerity was born the following year and subsequently entrusted to champion trainer Pesi Shroff.
In 2010, Jacqueline, the super filly co-owned by Desai, had won all four Indian classics (see "Derby delight,” Parsiana, March 7, 2010), creating a world record.