Commencing from Tuesday, the first day of this monsoon meeting, The Royal Calcutta Turf Club has introduced a system of declaring jockeys 48 hours prior to the scheduled race day. This is basically for the benefit of their patrons abroad as racing at the RCTC is now telecast live in Europe by the Sportsman Media Group GmbH, Munich (Germany).

While there have been endless debates in the past about the pros and cons of early declarations, it is a fact that a punter, who is a hardcore form-worker, will be benefited immensely by the extra 24 hours at his disposal. There is however a flip side to this action by RCTC. Some sceptics opine that such early declarations may also aid the unscrupulous in the sport, but then thoroughbred racing is in itself a daring game of give and take and only time will tell which of the two categories will be the long-time gainer. It may be recalled that there was an era, several decades back when RWITC was declaring riders and draws barely a couple of hours before the start of the first race to curtail foul-play, but this modus operandi turned out to be somewhat impractical for several reasons.

Last season, the most notable absentees from the trainers’ list were leading saddler Vijay Singh and Daniel David who were both suspended. The greatest beneficiary of Vijay’s absence was trainer Robert Gowli who ended the season as the runaway champion (29 winners) with the help of the runners from Vijay’s yard. On his own steam, Gowli has been fairly successful with three-year-olds and has the rather rare distinction of training the Chevalier-Star Pride pair of sprinters Gimme Credit and Mellow Fellow -- both of whom won their maiden starts. One can recall that veteran Dhariwal had   performed a similar feat in the mid-eighties with the TV Sunday – Urvashi greats Chaitanya Ratham and Chaitanya Chakram.

Three-year-olds Ophion, Abbeville and Xotica have proved themselves last winter and are likely to be the youngsters that the aficionados of the game will keenly watch on the track. Some of the horses to follow in the early part of the season are listed below.

Arti Doctor: Flamstead, Multivalue, Simply Royale, Aatish

Vijay Singh: Evesham, Mr. Gorgeous, Multitude, Setaflame, Ophion, Abbeville, Ballister, Milestone, Dysnomia

Bharath Singh: Noverro, Tweedle Dee, Aquitania, Serendine

Javed Khan: Bacaardi, Xotica, Ascend, Make Way For Me

D M David: Say You Say Me

Vikash Jaiswal: No More Politics, Bengal Tiger

H. S. Bath: Anastasio

James Mckeown: Rustler, Running Hand

Manvendra Singh: Theo, Interstellar

Rutherford Alford: Gentle Knowledge, Ashrafie

The handicapper has dropped the scale by 3kg (barring three-year-olds) and this should help winners of last winter to have a toe in it in the early part of the season.

The 18-day meeting with a total of 126 advertised races (which include 29 Cup Races) is scheduled to end on Friday, 14th October, 2016. About 461 horses, under the charge of 20 ‘A’ licensed trainers are stationed at this centre at present. This includes 110 two- year- olds.

Further, 24 ‘A’ licenses and 13 ‘B’ licenses have been issued to jockeys, while ten apprentice jockeys will continue to ride in races during the season. The advertised Stake money for the Monsoon Meeting 2016 including value of Cups is Rs. 6,60,85,000/- which is a considerably drop from the previous season’s Rs 7.95 crore.

The dates to earmark on your racing calendar and look forward to are :-

The Independence Cup 17th August, 2016

The Calcutta Juvenile Sprint 20th August, 2016

The Calcutta Monsoon Sprint 3rd September, 2016

The Calcutta Fillies Trial Stakes 3rd September, 2016

The Calcutta Colts Trial Stakes 10th September, 2016

The Stewards Cup 24th September, 2016

The Calcutta Monsoon Derby 1st October, 2016

The Monsoon Cup 14th October, 2016