The Stewards of the Bangalore Turf Club decided to call off the first two day’s of the Bangalore Summer Season which was scheduled to start this week. At an emergency meeting called to take stock of the situation, they decided to postpone the commencement of the season to Saturday 17th May 2008. The racing officials along with the trainers made an inspection of the track in the morning and submitted their observations to the authorities. The decision was made after careful consideration of the evidence put before them.

It is learnt that the track is still very hard. There are huge patches seen on the track, especially in the backstretch between the 1200 Metres and the 500 Metres markers. The lack of rainfall in the month of April has largely contributed to this situation. With a long season ahead of them, the Stewards wanted to give another 10 day’s to the officials for them to get the track into shape. Although there were scattered showers in the city this week, the rainfall was not sufficient to improve the situation.

Another issue seems to be the construction of the new boundary wall. The work on this project started about two weeks ago. The proximity of this wall to the racing track has compounded the problems. The contractor is forced to bring the earth moving equipments into the BTC compound and approach the site from the race track. This is obviously going to lead to further wear and tear of the racing grass near the wall. It is hoped that things will get sorted out in the next few days.

The racing public was looking forward to the action starting on time. They will now have to cross their fingers and hope for things to get sorted out before the 17th of May.