![S.A. Poonawalla Million to be run on Nov. 7](https://www.thehindu.com/static/theme/default/base/img/og-image.jpg)
S.A. Poonawalla Million to be run on Nov. 7
The Hindu
The S.A. Poonawalla Million, one of the marquee races in the Pune racing calendar, will be staged here on Sunday (Nov. 7), behind closed doors and without spectators. The race was not conducted last y
The S.A. Poonawalla Million, one of the marquee races in the Pune racing calendar, will be staged here on Sunday (Nov. 7), behind closed doors and without spectators. The race was not conducted last year as the racing season was cancelled due to the pandemic.
The Royal Western India Turf Club (RWITC) had sought permission from the State Government for online betting operations last week and from this Sunday onwards, RWITC will be offering betting vouchers worth ₹700 to the racing enthusiasts who will subscribe to live streaming which costs ₹1000 (valid for that day) on www.play.rwitc.com.
The Poonawalla Million (1,600m) (Gr. 3) is named after the late Soli A. Poonawalla, a pioneer of thoroughbred breeding in India and the father of Cyrus and Zavaray Poonawalla.
![](/newspic/picid-1269750-20250217064624.jpg)
When fed into Latin, pusilla comes out denoting “very small”. The Baillon’s crake can be missed in the field, when it is at a distance, as the magnification of the human eye is woefully short of what it takes to pick up this tiny creature. The other factor is the Baillon’s crake’s predisposition to present less of itself: it moves about furtively and slides into the reeds at the slightest suspicion of being noticed. But if you are keen on observing the Baillon’s crake or the ruddy breasted crake in the field, in Chennai, this would be the best time to put in efforts towards that end. These birds live amidst reeds, the bulrushes, which are likely to lose their density now as they would shrivel and go brown, leaving wide gaps, thereby reducing the cover for these tiddly birds to stay inscrutable.