The internecine quarrels among a section of the members of the turf club is bound to have long lasting repercussions on the survival of the sport itself. There is already a fear that racing could be seriously impaired if the proposed GST of 18 per cent tax is levied on the turnover of the club. When the club is facing a serious issue on this front, a routine positive of a horse has been blown out of proportion with a horse owner Chandre Gowda filing a complaint with the police, backed by a section of the members with vested interests bringing about a conspiracy angle to the whole thing. In the bargain, truth has become the biggest casualty. It is well known that in an acrimonious proxy war that one is witness to, the first casualty is the truth - that during any internecine quarrel, the truth is forsaken for propaganda.

The issue has been exploded out of proportion with the Chairman of the Club Harinder Shetty on whom a no-confidence motion had been moved by the members of the Managing Committee alleging that he is being made the victim for fighting for the cause of protecting the integrity of the club. The matter has generated so much debate in the media circles that the government itself is planning to have an inquiry into the whole affair. It is also reported that the government has ordered for the status quo to be maintained and that the Managing Committee meeting scheduled for Sunday should be put off. One must wait and see what course of action the managing committee members takes in the light of the directive from the finance secretary because the club is not bound to follow the dictates of the government as it is governed by the Company Act.

Three horses tested positive for breach of medication rules namely Queen Latifa, Rafa and another horse belonging to trainer Gregory Sandhu. Queen Latifa is trained by Neil Darashah and Rafa is by Dominic. Both Queen Latifa and Rafa came positive for procaine penicillin which is a drug used for treating bacterial infections. These are legal therapeutic drugs administered to horses for alleviating the suffering. The bone of contention is that in the case of trainer Dominic, a raid was conducted on his stables to find out whether there were any medications stored in the stable. In the case of Neil Darashah, the Chief Veterinary Officer reportedly asked for a quantification of the sample and no ride took place on the stable by the officials. The reason given is that since the said drug had been administered by the club about 25 days prior to it running in a race, there was no fresh evidence required. The report from the testing lab at Delhi came in a week later and hence the delay in reporting the issue is what the officials are saying in defense of the time lag for announcing the result. Since only 1.2 nanograms were present in the urine sample, the issue was placed before the Stewards for their consideration. Internationally, the reporting levels for a horse to be considered positive for procaine penicillin is about 10 nanograms. The Delhi lab has been added to the list of accredited labs only in recent times and the lab was not aware of the reporting levels. Shobha Ahi who is a scientist with the lab has since informed the Chief of the Veterinary Commission of the Turf Authorities of India that they were unaware of the reporting levels and that henceforth they will adhere to the 10 nanogram limit.

The disinformation campaign ensured that the media got the juicy story to play up in a way that gave an impression that this was the biggest doping scandal in the history of Indian racing. It also named the CEO of the Club Nirmal Prasad as accused number one followed by Pradhuman Singh, Arjun Sajnani who is one among the five people who own the horse and Ubhaykar, the Steward of the Club though there are six of them elected to the office. The charge was that the CEO was trying to suppress the matter to favor Arjun Sajnani while there was a procedure to be followed. No horse is considered as being positive until the split sample of the urine is sent for confirmatory analysis to another foreign lab identified for this purpose located in Hong Kong, France or England. As such, there is no scope for mischief. Sadly, the issue has been blown out of proportion resulting in serious damage to the sport. It will take a long time for the sport to recover from the damage caused. The turf club, on its part, made a cardinal error in not trying to refute the charges and remaining silent which gave grist to the mill.

The Chairman of the Club Harinder Shetty has not helped matters by his outburst against his fellow colleagues accusing them of being part of betting mafia and stating that he was being victimized because he wanted to clean up the mess. Wild allegations have been flying fast and thick further denting the image of the sport.