A section of the crowd rioted at the Bangalore Turf Club in protest against the result of the seventh race, the Bugs Bunny Cup. The Authorities were forced to cancel the last race of the day and have opened an enquiry into the running and riding in the Bugs Bunny Cup.
Second favourite Appoint, ridden by C.Alford, had opened up a long lead on the rest coming into the straight. S.Ramesh on Hidalgo and Prakash on Simply Spectacular gave chase and started narrowing the gap. Alford began to urge his mount on but was receiving no response as Appoint was stopping and inevitably Hidalgo, a 33-1 outsider, managed to pass him close to the winning post.
The trouble started soon after the cup presentation with some people in the crowd giving vent to their anger by shouting abuse at the BTC authorities and officials. This quickly degenerated into a full scale riot and the crowd went on a rampage, smashing the tote windows, computers and televisions on the ground floor. The police were completely conspicuous by their absence and this emboldened the crowd to surge towards the weighing room demanding action against the jockies. Luckily for those inside the weighing room someone closed and locked the grill gates thereby denying access to the mob. The mob then used flowerpots to smash the weighing room windows.
After nearly forty-five minutes the Stewards announced the opening of an enquiry into the running and riding of the race as well as the cancellation of the last race of the day. Meanwhile the arrival of police reinforcements helped in dispersing the mob, bringing the fracas to an end.
There has been simmering discontent among the punters for some time now and it is unfortunate that this erupted into violence today. The BTC was caught completely unawares and they will have to review their preparedness for such eventualities in order to prevent such incidents taking place in future.
