PUNE: The trickiest race of the Sunday card is the feature event, the grade 3, Pune Bookmakers Association Turf Club Trophy, to be run over seven furlongs. Fourteen top class horses have entered the fray with an eye on the winner's rich prize of Rs 9 lakh, and prominent among them are the Pesi Shroff-trained Adam, Cooji Katrak-trained Shivalik Storm, Altaf Hussain-trained Dancing Prances and the Bangalore challenger Royal Salute whom his trainer Prasanna Kumar has brought all the way form Bangalore specially for this race after his two back-to-back victories at Bangalore over the same trip. However, thanks to a brilliant mock race on August 2, Adam will most likely be installed as favourite.

However, to this list I would like to add the Malesh Narredu-trained Maximus who also ran suggestively behind Adam in the same mock race, and who, by the terms of this race, is now much better placed at the scales with respect to Shivalik Storm & Dancing Prancess. With little luck, and some smart riding by Yash Narredu who is fast regaining his form as is evident by a brace he scored yesterday, long shot Maximus may upset them all and have the last laugh.