After  the two-day flash strike, that forced the Bangalore Turf Club (BTC) to cancel  two racing days resulting in the owners losing out stake money amounting to one crore last week, the members of Karnataka Trainers Association (KTA) and the Karnataka Racehorse Owners’ Association (KROA) decided to put in entries for the races to be held on Thursday and Friday (July 30 & 31) after the club agreed  to convene a meeting on Wednesday and look into the issues raised by the two bodies and the members of the Jockeys Association Of India (JAI).

“We had made it clear that no entries, no racing. Discussion on issues only after they call of strike and enter their horses for the racing ahead. They toed the line and furnished a list of their demands in the morning on Tuesday following which we informed the associations that we are open to dialogue and will hold a meeting on Wednesday after the entries are put. And now that the entries are fielded we will discuss and debate on the issues before racing resumes at this centre on Thursday,” said Harimohan.

KROA, former secretary Arvind Raghavan revealed that  the club despite many reminders had failed to provide solutions to a couple of serious issues which have hit the trainers and owners hard and that they were left with no choice but to protest.

Arvind revealed that a uniform rule on punishments meted out to erring professionals must be drawn up by the Turf Authority of India (TAI). The club also needs to reframe rules of racing and update calendar notification.  In addition Arvind pointed out that the club should not exercise control on the trainers and owners as to who they should engage to ride their wards.

"The exclusive discretion to declare a jockey vests with the concerned owner and trainer and this should not be disturbed by the racing officials,” said Arvind.

'The Club has already initiated action on most of the issues. A couple of them should be cleared by TAI, the apex body and that will not happen overnight,” said Harimohan.

A regular racing buff brought to light that in all this exercise and the effort to get trainer Gregory Sandhu a reduced sentence from the appeal board after he was slapped a four-day suspension by the stewards for engaging an incompetent rider to guide the fortunes of the favourite Shaft, all the trainers and jockeys at this centre themselves got a two-day suspension following the cancellation of races last week.  

Well this is true and Sandhu must be having the last laugh.

KTA secretary S Dominic said: “We are confident that many positives will emerge from our meeting on Wednesday and we are also looking forward to the racing ahead.”

Well now that all the owners and trainers have chosen to facilitate and resume racing and the jockeys who initially disclosed that they were not a party to the strike before they were roped in to support the exercise, have fallen in line, the starter’s flag on Thursday will again provide the opportunity for the many pros to strike it rich and make it a summer to remember.