March 29 was a memorable day for Cipla Chairman YK Hamied whose horse, named Simply Sweet, trumped the 1,400 metres Commanche Double Stakes race in Mumbai, at the Royal Western India Turf Club.

Simply Sweet, which won the race in 1.22.96 time, beat favourites — Congressional and Polydences. “She has literally, turned out to be a dark horse,” chuckles Hamied. “She was trailing at 7 to 1.”

Speaking to BusinessLine about his passion for all things equestrian, he says, “There is another horse of mine running on April 4 in Mumbai, named Limekilns, a three-year-old filly.

This will be her first time. She should be good, since she is the foal of racehorse Lombardia,” he adds. In April 2006, Lombardia had romped home to a stunning victory in the JD & Peggy Banatwalla Trophy in Mumbai, when the then three-year-old had scored a fluent win, stunning the crowd.

At that time, the jackpot was ₹1,384. Owning horses has always been a passion with Hamied. He now owns “around 10 to 12 horses, all in partnerships.”

“Naming horses is fun. It is my speciality, in fact,” says Hamied, who co-owns horses with names as varied as Fast Lady, Noble Lady, Puerto Banus, (Hamied’s home in Spain), Glorieuse, Vilna (Hamied’s birthplace), and Hoshiyaar.

What's in a name

He says that the current trend is to have horses with names ending with ‘eyes.’ “Like Starry Eyes, many horses will now have the word eyes at the end of their name,” he says, adding that we check back in some years to verify it.

Some of the horses co-owned by Hamied have romped home, like Fast Lady, which streaked past the winning post on December 25, 2014, or Hoshiyaar, which breast the tape on February 12, 2015. Surely for the industrialist, the business of horses is definitely no horseplay.

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