Racing in Trouble as Clubs and Governments Lock Horns

Indian horse racing is reeling under a perfect storm, the government’s punitive 40% GST has drained its coffers, turf clubs are entangled in land feuds, and now disease scares threaten to finish what bureaucracy began. While visionaries like Zavaray Poonawalla keep the sport breathing, others seem intent on pulling the plug. From Bangalore’s boardrooms to Chennai’s crumbling tracks, Indian racing is running, quite literally, out of turf.

 

By Sharan Kumar

 

If Indian horse racing were a patient, it would currently be in the ICU, not for lack of pulse, but because the government insists on charging 40% GST on the IV drip. This absurd “sin tax” on betting has done what no rival turf club or rogue punter could ever manage, it’s crippled the sport financially and morally.

 

The racing clubs, once vibrant citadels of sport and style, are now gasping for oxygen. If not for the philanthropic cavalry led by Zavaray Poonawalla, racing would have been last seen riding into the sunset. For him, racing isn’t just a passion, it’s practically a religion. He has once again donned the shining armour to rescue the game, generously sponsoring the entire Bangalore classics and planning to make the Bangalore Derby the richest in India. Without him, the “sport of kings” would be reduced to the “sport of survival.”

 

But while Poonawalla is busy playing Santa, the Bangalore Turf Club (BTC) is dancing barefoot on a bureaucratic landmine. The Karnataka government, in its trademark display of “public-spirited benevolence,” has ordered the club to vacate its century-old home within two years. The proposed new site? A chunk of the historic Kunigal Stud Farm, yes, the very cradle of Indian breeding excellence, from which the government plans to snatch 100 acres, as casually as if they were plucking weeds.

 

The deal, of course, comes with the usual fine print: BTC must first withdraw its ongoing Supreme Court case over the existing land. Even if this Faustian bargain were to go through, a rather inconvenient question hangs in the air, where will the money come from? Building a new racecourse from scratch isn’t exactly a weekend DIY project. With GST having gutted the clubs’ revenues and illegal betting channels siphoning away what’s left, the idea of raising massive capital for new infrastructure borders on fantasy.

 

The clubs are broke, the government is bullish, and racing is on life support. BTC’s predicament could best be described as a classic Catch-22, damned if they stay, doomed if they move. In true BTC fashion, the first letter they sent back was an art form in obstinacy, reiterating the same old stand, offering nothing, and annoying everyone. The government’s response was swift and predictable, it held back the racing licence until the eleventh hour, leaving everyone from jockeys to janitors in a state of suspense. The club finally managed to get a one-month reprieve, a sort of “temporary parole” for racing.

 

Now BTC faces the unenviable task of convincing its members to sign away the court case and accept the government’s terms in a Special General Body Meeting. Sweeteners include four acres at the current premises for a clubhouse and off-course betting, plus the Kunigal land. There’s even whispered talk of offering government officials club memberships without the huge amount that has to be paid by others, a move that could provoke members into spontaneous combustion.

 

While Bangalore tiptoes through its crisis, Chennai’s Madras Race Club has taken a harder fall. The Supreme Court, showing little sympathy, allowed the Tamil Nadu government to “strengthen” the pond and plant saplings right through the track, a brilliant move if the aim is to replace horse racing with a botanical garden. Racing scheduled for the weekend has been cancelled, and unless a miracle happens, Chennai racing could be taking its final bow.

 

As if this circus needed another act, Hyderabad is now spooked by rumours of an equine disease outbreak. Several horses have shown respiratory distress, leading to whispers of glanders, a word that can freeze the blood of any racing man. The club has rushed nearly 600 samples to Hissar for testing, and the entire fraternity waits with bated breath. Should even one positive case emerge, the government will swoop in, and racing could be on an indefinite break.

 

So here we are, a once-glorious industry now staggering under its own mismanagement and the government’s gleeful hostility. Clubs are battling court cases, land evictions, and viral rumours. Horses are coughing, clubs are choking, and punters are gasping.

 

Indian racing needs a miracle.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The enduring charm of the Bangalore Derby

I never thought that I would become a full-time racing writer when I set out as a journalist in the year 1980. My passion for cricket was what drove me to become a sports journalist. If there are many converts like me in the field of horse racing, you can blame it on the enduring charm of the Derby. Most people come to the Derby because they hear so much about it. Many of them stay back and I was one of them.   The first time I attended any race day was the running of the 1984 Derby. Eddy Cracknell trained Lively Empery was one of the highest priced runners in the fray. The horse reportedly was for sale much before the Derby. Luckily for the trainer it remained unsold and the horse went on to win the Summer Derby as well as the Winter Derby in the hands of Alan Mercer. It won the Derby at odds of 100 to 1.   Legend has it that the current leading trainer Padmanabhan told one of his owners to buy the horse and that he would win the Derby with this horse. The owner was n...
Read more

Rajan Bala, one of a rare kind

Image
One of the finest cricketer writers that India has seen, Rajan Bala, passed away in Bangalore on Friday (October 9) after brief illness. He was truly an inspirational journalist for a generation of sports writers in the country in a career spanning about four decades. I began my career as a sports journalist in Deccan Herald of which he was the Sports Editor. I worked under him later in Indian Express as well though at that time he was stationed in Chennai. He then moved to Mumbai and also had a stint with an eveninger. He returned to Bangalore in the last decade with the intention of retiring from active journalism and keep himself occupied by writing columns for newspapers. But he soon landed another job, this time as the Resident Editor of Bangalore edition of Asian Age and he made me write a column on horse racing. He later became a columnist for Bangalore Mirror and joined a TV company as a consultant editor and yet again, he made me participate in a panel discussion on horse rac...
Read more
Are the British government betting restrictions on the money?   By Rolf Johnson   I’m jumping the gun. The Government’s Gambling Review  might  publish its findings on 17 April but as deadlines for its publication have come and gone over three yawning years, I don’t think there’s need to hold one’s breath long enough to asphyxiate oneself. The delay has nothing to do, we are assured, with the £378,000 that fifty-seven Members of Parliament have received since the last election in hospitality, gifts, donations and wages from bookmakers. The integrity of that largesse has been “checked” though whether as rigorously as it is intended the public’s betting habits are going to be, we’ll have to be patient – until April 17 at least. Theatre audiences continue to attend playwright Samuel Beckett’s 1981 masterpiece ‘Waiting for Godot’ whose message is that repeated nonsensical actions demonstrate man’s inability to give meaning to life. Heavy stuff: but the Gambling Commissio...
Read more