Glanders Exposes Racing’s Weak Links By Sharan Kumar Racing is navigating one of its roughest patches in decades, and this crisis demands transparency, not half-truths. One positive at Mysore and five positives in Bangalore have triggered the alarm, with final confirmation from NRCE now awaited. Yet turf clubs must go beyond waiting for reports, they must openly trace the root cause of the outbreak and stop burying uncomfortable facts. Chennai is already shut due to government hostility, while Hyderabad , Bangalore and Mysore have frozen racing because of glanders. If NRCE confirms the findings, winter racing could collapse everywhere except Mumbai and Kolkata , where the clock is ticking ominously. Only full cooperation can contain the crisis, and to eliminate every shred of doubt, India should seek reconfirmation from a reputable lab in England before charting the sport’s next steps. According to information available, the trouble trail...
Posts
.png)
A Decisive Mandate to Navigate Demanding Road Ahead By Sharan Kumar The verdict at the KSCA polls could not have been clearer. The members voted overwhelmingly for change, handing former India pacer Venkatesh Prasad and his “Game Changers” team a sweeping mandate that leaves no ambiguity about what the cricketing fraternity expects: renewal, transparency, and forward momentum. Prasad, who defeated K. N. Shanth Kumar by a margin of over 150 votes, now helms a Managing Committee composed almost entirely of his own slate, an unmistakable signal that the electorate wanted a clean, disruption-free runway for the new leadership. Former cricketers Sujith Somasundar and Avinash Vaidya take up key positions, while B. K. Ravi is the lone representative from the opposing camp to secure a slot, winning the post of Joint Secretary. In a telling political shift, long-time Brijesh Patel loyalist Santosh Menon had switched camps earlier and went ...
KSCA Polls: One Team Brings Experience; the Other Promises to Figure It Out Later By Sharan Kumar The elections to the Karnataka State Cricket Association are heating up, think of it as an IPL auction where one side knows what they’re doing and the other is still googling “how to build a team.” On one side, we have the Brijesh Patel–backed brigade, fielding K. N. Shanth Kumar for President, a man whose résumé doesn’t just speak; it practically waves its credentials. Shanth Kumar hails from a family that didn’t just promote sport, they carried it on their backs when sponsorship was harder to find than a Bangalore pitch offering bounce. His father K N Nettakallapa personally funded events when raising money for sport was equivalent to winning a Test in Hobart with one wicket in hand. Add to that the Deccan Herald's legacy of championing sport, and you know the pedigree is real, not manufactured for campaign time. And then ...
Glanders Blow Pushes Indian Racing to the Brink By Sharan Kumar Disaster has struck Indian racing yet again, this time in Bangalore, where five horses have tested positive for the dreaded glanders, forcing a government-mandated three-month shutdown. As if nature’s blow wasn’t enough, human negligence and administrative chaos have eagerly joined the party, pushing the sport deeper into despair. With Hyderabad already crippled and Chennai buried, Indian racing now battles on multiple fronts, disease, incompetence, and a tax regime determined to finish the job. Glanders, caused by the nasty Burkholderia mallei , is not your routine stable sniffle. It is a highly contagious, often fatal, Category A zoonotic disease that can threaten horses, mules, donkeys, and, if fate is feeling particularly cruel, even humans working around them. The moment it surfaces, the rulebook is brutally clear: lock down the centre, quarantine everything that whinnies, and su...
BTC’s Bold Resolutions on a Legless Stool By Sharan Kumar The Bangalore Turf Club (BTC) has passed a series of resolutions at its Extraordinary General Meeting held on Saturday, each laden with ambitions of relocation, continued occupation, financial concessions, and administrative authorisations. On paper, it looks like a club attempting to take charge of its destiny. But scratch beneath the surface, and the exercise begins to resemble a grand illusion of authority, one that the Government of Karnataka is unlikely to entertain. For decades, BTC has functioned under the belief that its heritage, influence, and contribution to the city’s social life give it a certain bargaining power. That belief may have felt true in a different era. But in 2025, with no lease on the land it occupies, no legal claim over the 60+ acres on Race Course Road, and a complete dependency on the government for its license, utilities, and operational permissions, the club ...
Madras Race Club’s Hopes Sealed in Landmark Ruling By Sharan Kumar In a landmark ruling that could shake the foundations of horse racing across India, the Madras High Court has authorised the Tamil Nadu Government to proceed unhindered with flood-mitigation and eco-restoration works on the 160-acre Guindy racecourse land, effectively extinguishing any remaining hope of racing ever resuming in Chennai. The race track itself has already been dug up, with saplings planted across vast stretches of the property, signalling the decisive end of a 246-year-old racing tradition in the city. A Division Bench of Justices S.M. Subramaniam and Mohammed Shaffiq set aside the earlier status quo order that had protected the Madras Race Club’s occupation of the land. Holding that environmental protection, climate resilience and public interest far outweigh private leasehold claims, the court cleared the route for the State to continue developing ponds, sp...
Can ₹200 Decide a Cricket Presidency? By Sharan Kumar In the grand theatre of Karnataka cricket, where power struggles are rarely subtle and where elections often resemble Test matches played on crumbling fifth-day pitches, a new absurdity has emerged. The nomination of K.N. Shantha Kumar for the post of President of the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) was rejected because the sports body he represented had an outstanding subscription arrear of ₹200. Not a large unpaid bill, not a financial scandal, not even a technical violation of significant consequence, just ₹200 spread across four years, an amount that would barely buy two cups of filter coffee on M.G. Road. Yet, in the scrutiny room of KSCA’s election machinery, this tiny figure proved fatal. The question now naturally arises: can such a trivial arrear legitimately topple a nomination for one of the most important administrative seats in Karnataka cricket? The answer, a...