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On the professional front, it was once again Irfan Ghatala and Suraj Narredu. The two of them retained their positions at the top of the trainers and jockeys championships. It was creditable to see them repeating their Winter performances. Irfan and Dhariwal were almost together till the final weekend, and it was Brunetta's victory which ultimately settled this issue in Irfan's favour. He has some wonderful three year-olds in his charge, and it shall be worth following the fortunes of Sun Kingdom and Sunspirit during the forthcoming Mysore Season. Suraj has been riding with his usual confidence, and his services were requisitioned by a cross-section of trainers. He was just seven short of the magical figure of "1,000 Career Wins" when the season ended prematurely on Thursday. The champion jockey is looking forward to setting a few records by achieving that landmark. The most important amongst them will definitely be for riding the fastest 1000 in the history of Indian Racing. The other would be for a father and son achieving the same feat. Satish Narredu's name already figures prominently amongst those who have ridden more than a thousand winners. If you add uncle Mallesh Narredu's name to this list, you may have to dig deep into history while finding an equivalent performance coming from a single family.
The final weekend of racing on Thursday and Friday was billed as a "Racing Carnival". Eleven races were scheduled to be held on both afternoons, and many racegoers had been forced to take leave from their places of work on these two days. Large crowds thronged The Bangalore Turf Club on Thursday. As reported earlier, the paddock got stormed after the completion of the presentation ceremony of the day's feature. Members of KROA and KTA (Karnataka Trainer's Association) were agitating against the Club's authorities. Their grouse was that their request for an extra couple of race day's being added at the end of the current season, had been turned down by The Club. Wanting to precipitate matters and force the issue in their favour, the two associations had decided to resort to such an action. They felt that this was the only way forward. Refusing to bring the announced runners of the last three races into the paddock, they halted the day's proceedings. The Stewards decided to postpone the last three races to Friday, and announced a 14 race programme starting at 11 in the morning.
The Bangalore Turf Club looked like a "high security" area on Friday. There was a large presence of police personnel before the gates opened. The expected arrival of The Governor Of Karnataka to give away the trophies was an important factor. The authorities had asked for extra security, as they wanted to ensure that there was no repetition of what had transpired the previous day. The racing public arrived in large numbers and the grandstands began to fill up. However, the paddock looked deserted. There was no sign of horses, and it was rumoured that the trainers had decided to "strike" again. The authorities waited a while, announced the cancellation of the first two races at regular intervals, before making a final assessment of the situation. Identifying the militant attitude of the trainers, they were quick to announce the cancellation of the day's programme. An announcement apologizing for this inconvenience caused to the patrons was heard over the public address system.
There were numerous theories doing the rounds after this announcement. The present state of affairs was blamed onto The KTA, The KROA and The BTC Stewards by different sections of society. Many felt that the grouse was right, but the means employed to have it addressed were faulty. There were others who felt that if the Bangalore based trainers were genuinely upset with the conditions prevailing at the BTC, they could easily surrender their licences and go elsewhere. The BTC had neither invited them, nor forced them to train here. On their part, the trainers said that they were merely following the instructions of their owners. The KROA did not want their horses to race today.
All this made little sense to the average racegoer. The racing during the Summer Season hadn't run favourably for the punters. They had been losing consistently and were actually chasing a "rainbow" for the last few months. Everybody knew that the horses had stopped working since the last couple of days and more than half of them had been de-wormed and rested after their previous runs. Even if the BTC had agreed to another two days of racing, where were we going to get the runners? Would we see unfit horses facing the starter? Would the punter keep suffering for an extended period of time? Nobody had any answers to these questions. There was only one fact that emerged from the whole scenario. The KROA's bid to get some extra races had actually led to the cancellation of 14 races on Friday. More importantly, the members of KROA had lost more than Rs 1.5 crore in stake money by the cancellation of racing on the opening and closing weekends of The Bangalore Summer Season 2010.
