RCTC badly needs a nursery
By Aalibaba

September 06, 2004

Attendance at the RCTC has been going down over the past 15 years. Be it live racing or inter-venue, one hardly comes across new faces. Many efforts were made in the past to attract new people to the sport but these have hardly yielded results. Fashion shows have flopped as students of the sport could hardly squeeze in time for such events in between races. In fact, many displayed their annoyance as they felt such shows were proving to be a distraction from the subject for which they had come to the course. Also, racegoers hardly find time to look at the celebrities who normally get invited to the races as an added attraction. Once inside the racecourse, it’s always a serious business – of spotting winners – for a punter. 

Royal Calcutta Turf Club

The time for little fun for most of the punters – casual or serious – is only during the paddock parade. Tension starts building once horses start leaving the paddock. Thereafter, it is either running after those who bet big or looking for a lucrative investment at the tote. After all, in the money game, there is no love for celebrity how ever much he or she is popular. A cursory glance or a little exercise of rubbing shoulders with them is what a punter has the time for.

RCTC’s plight started about two decades ago when the popular Tollygunge gymkhana racing bid good bye. ‘Tolly’ races, as it was popularly known, had served for long as a nursery for the budding punters or racing enthusiasts. Children riding ponies and cheered by their own crowd was a different kind of fun. Therefore, it did not come as a surprise when turnstiles started displaying downwards slide at the RCTC ground after Tolly pulled it’s shutters down.

Youngsters get hooked to any sport at tender age. You don’t see many in their twenties beginning a career in tennis, cricket or other lucrative sports. It has to begin early on to develop real passion for any discipline in sport. Middle aged new comers do show up at regular intervals but their love with the sport lasts as long as they make a little money. It’s their greed for easy money, more than the sport that brings them in, before a hurried exit.

Like every turf club striving for new ideas, RCTC, too, has done its best in the past decade and a half, and the club is still trying their hardest despite a hardened attitude of the ‘left’ ruled state which is image conscious. In a conservative state like Bengal, horseracing is considered a bigger sin than drinking. 

Governments in other states are comparatively liberal than the left ruled state. Look at the number of off-course betting centers in the states of Maharastra, Karnataka and Andhra. Where does Bengal stand with a solitary off-course center – in Russell Street – which was the first one of it’s kind in the country. There had been many RCTC representations to the government but with no change of heart at the seat of power.

RCTC’s repeated rebuff from the state government has drained it from fresh ideas. The only avenue for them now is to look for some sponsor to lay a 500-metre track on the outskirts of the city to race ponies with children to ride them. However, no totalisator and bookmakers will operate and winners will be entitled to prizes of some kind. There will also be something for those rooting for their winners – again in kind, no cash please.