Vivek Jain, Chairman of the Jury, stated, "Its a unique event for us and a ceremony of this type was long overdue. Its a beginning and we hope to emulate this season after season."
An interesting dimension has been to give awards to the "small" owner (defined as owners with 10 or fewer horses) and "small" trainer (defined as 20 or fewer horses) and this makes the stakes high for owners and trainers with smaller string of horses who hitherto used to be over shadowed by the 'big boys' of racing.
The last category for Champion Juvenile is open to judging by a public and anyone can nominate his/her choice by either emails or penning on the "Nomination Form' at both the Mumbai and Pune race courses. To cast your vote, email your choice to dysecretary@rwitc.com before 4pm on Saturday – 25th October 08, if you are not at the venue.
The O Hotels will also present four special awards for lifetime achievement, leadership excellence, contribution to racing and the legendary trainer award.
A huge congregation from the racing world will join in the celebrations at a glittering ceremony at the O Banquet Hall on Saturday. The Jury, headed by Vivek Jain, also comprises of M/s Geoffrey Nagpal, Ashwin Mehta & Goutam Kotwal. The formula adopted by the Turf Authorities of India has been taken as the guideline.
The O Awards is a much needed introduction of Recognition of racing excellence and Indiarace wishes the organizers the very best in this excellent endeavour.
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