After the end of the curtailed winter season, it is time to take stock and look at what the Bangalore Turf Club (BTC) has in store for summer. Well before the summer season scheduled to start in the third week of May, BTC is facing several issues which need to be resolved with tact,but with committee sticking to the high-handed approach,the issues will only snowball into major problems in the weeks ahead, which the committee will find it hard to handle.

First lets take up the issue of trainers and particularly the owners. The trainers and owners have brought it to the notice of the committee that the club in the interest of the local owners should only allow outstation horses to compete in the highest class and classic races. Well this has not happened before but the point the owners and trainers are making is that when the local owners and trainers suffered with no racing for four months here, Mysore apart none of the rest provided relief sticking to their own rules and regulations. The owners also pointed out that they have incurred big losses during the four-month period and that the club should first look to facilitate the local owners rather than encouraging the outstation trainers to bring in their horses in their effort to make it a summer to remember.

The committee is not impressed and in a meeting scheduled to be held on Saturday is all geared to tell the local trainers and owners that they need to toe their line. This is just not done. BTC needs to first protect and facilitate the local owners. They have made big investments at this centre and you cannot dismiss their valid appeal. But unfortunately the committee is least bothered about the owners at this centre and are more interested in pleasing the many big owners and committee members of the other clubs who want to race their horses with no or a limited restriction. It is time the KTA and KROA put their foot down and send a strong message to the decision makers that they cannot be sacrificing the interest of the small locals to please the few biggies from the other centres.

Next is the tote operators and the illegal bookies problem. While no real effort has been made by the club to stop the illegal bookies menace, the club has twice cracked the whip on the poor tote operators, reducing their number and not giving dual payments when off-course betting is held on races at two centres on a given day. The BTC blamed the police for not taking action on the illegal bookies. This is not true taking into account that the police have time and again rounded up a good number. The fact is that BTC is really not looking to solve the problem for more reasons than one. The dull-headed committee is just not bothered losing more than four crore collections at the tote each day. How can a committee which is elected to run operations in a profitable manner ignore this big hole. The members are demanding an explanation.They believe that the illegal bookies will not dare to operate from inside the premises of the club unless they have a few Godfathers in the opposition ranks.Well if that is true,this committee has some explaining to do when the Pandora's box is forced open in the weeks ahead.

Next the committee wants to shun the media. Running scared after the infamous Queen Latifa case which was unfortunately mishandled by a few who called the shots then. This committee which includes the monitoring committee formed by the government to protect the interests of the punters who are frequently taken for a ride doesn't want the media to critically examine issues.They are open to and appreciate only positive reporting and the moment one gets critical and exposes the underbelly they start to question his motive and intention. While the people who are running the governments are making big efforts to maintain good media relations, interacting, debating and open to suggestions and healthy debates, BTC is looking to shun the Fourth Estate in their run to prevent more skeletons from falling out of the spooky cupboard.

Chief Editor of Racing Pulse, Sharan Kumar is barred from entering the club without a charge or a notice. The committee, it is learnt took the decision after they found a couple of articles from this scribe merited the action. Well the charge is that Sharan Kumar is only putting out anti-club, anti-establishment articles and is also making personal attacks on a couple of committee members without ascertaining the facts and also not willing to clarify and present their side of the story. Well even if one agrees that the journalist may have crossed the line on a couple of occasions, what action the government or racing public should be taking on the mandarins of the club who time an again are caught not only crossing the line but are also crossing the road. This is just not done. No association, be it political, cultural, civic, business or sports can function without a watchdog (media) and BTC has caught the Tiger by its tail.