The Royal Western India Turf Club has struck a discordant note by going ahead with its plan to have racing only on Saturday and Sunday from next season onwards seriously impairing the financial foundations of other turf clubs in the country. This also seriously questions the essence of having a joint Turf Authorities of India.

The concept of maximizing racing benefit to all turf clubs by having a programme and fixtures committee has been given the go by. RWITC has unilaterally decided to have its fixtures without accommodating the premier events of other centres like the Derbys. In addition to the fact that next year`s Mumbai racing is to be curtailed by about eight race days and it clashes with four Derbys held elsewhere means that the clubs which are totally dependent on raising their revenue through betting are hit hard. In addition to the reduced days of racing proposed by them, the slot vacated on Thursday also needs to be filled up.

Some of the turf clubs in the country do not run their racing purely on the income generated through its core activity. For example, Mumbai racing is greatly subsidized by the amount of revenue collected by way of letting out its premises for marriages and other functions which itself totals to a staggering amount. Though Royal Calcutta Turf Club gets real estate money, the club mandarins are totally upset at the attitude of RWITC in not being accommodative to racing of other centres which they feel will bleed the sport financially in the long run.

RCTC benefitted by having its racing on Saturdays on the days vacated by Bangalore Turf Club but now this benefit gets void. Hyderabad has enough reserves and though they will also be affected financially, they may not express it. Or simply they don`t care. But the story is different as far as BTC, MRC (Mysore Race Club) and RCTC are concerned. They are bound to lose on an average in excess of Rs 3 crores per year by not taking Mumbai off course betting because of clash of dates. This situation is also bound to impact the clubs adversely in deciding on the quantum of stake money and ability to spend on racing related activities.

As per the revised schedule, Pune racing season will start on the first of August instead of third week of July. The Mumbai racing season will start in the third week of November and stretch up to the first week of May. The proposal of RWITC to have its racing only on weekends and disregarding racing of other centres including the Derby did not find acceptance of other turf authorities but the club seems to be adamant in forcing its way, thereby affecting the federal nature of the arrangement.

There are broad agreements on licensing of professionals, reciprocation of punishment as also the mount fee for jockeys and the commission to be paid to the professionals and medication rules. If RWITC were to chart an independent path, things could also have a bearing on this aspect as well. There is acute shortage of good jockeys in India and if racing dates were to clash with important events at other centres, big races will have to be run with run of the mill jockeys. Racing attracts crowd if the quality of the horses participating in a race is of a superior order. The same goes for the people who guide them.

Some centres take dual betting but the system though in operation for some years, has largely been a failure. Punters don`t have the capacity to back more races in a day. Apart from this, if there is a race every 15 minutes, one cannot concentrate on the paddock parade, betting trend and make a reasoned choice based on the parameters that keep changing. In the absence of all this racing gets reduced to pure lottery instead of being a game of skill.

The RWITC itself is facing financial problems on many fronts. The land lease is still pending. The club may succeed in getting the lease renewed but it is quite possible that it could come with several restrictions imposed on the use of vast expanse of land which may affect the club financially.

In the light of this, the move by RWITC is seen as striking at the financial root with long term disastrous consequence to the sport itself in India.