The Bangalore Summer Season will start from Saturday, May 16. The summer season which is a short one, is the most competitive racing season in the country. With Bangalore Turf Club deciding to allow outstation horses to compete in all category of races, competition is bound to be a higher order which should prevent the kind of ``fixed`` races that race goers were subjected to during the winter season.

The last winter season could be classified as the worst season ever, with the professionals playing havoc with the system, with power groups totally nullifying the authorities who yielded to these forces. Things are not expected to change dramatically though the presence of good quality horses from all over the country should act as a corrective.

There will be just three per cent hike in stakes. This meager hike in the past would not have been accepted by the owners association but with the club mandarins yielding to any demand, hike in stakes has not been aggressively perused. The authorities perhaps sold a dummy to the professionals in the form of relocation of extension counters as separate entities. This meant that Ganapathy and Aravind, Rashid Byramji and Darius Byramji, along with brothers Lokanath and Narayan Gowda, Dominic and Britto had to relocate and have separate establishment including the jamedhars. The turf club mandarins passed a rule that each of the trainers should have separate bonafide establishment and the additional license obtained by the family member should not act as facilitators for obtaining many facilities associated with a license.

This move obviously was opposed by trainers concerned as they did not want separate establishments. With most of those going to be affected being office bearers of the trainers association apart from one other powerful stable, things had to be re-worked. The authorities have time and again taken decisions which they are incapable of enforcing. This sort of decisions only helps power brokers to become stronger. So the prospectus meeting in effect became more of a persuasion meeting to get the club to postpone its decision to August. In BTC, new norms are framed only to keep then in abeyance so that fresh norms could be made.

Every time there is a move, there is counter move to keep things in the same place. Progress is something that is alien to Bangalore Turf Club culture because as soon as things start to look up, something happens and brings it back down to square one!

The Bangalore Turf Club actively encourages a policy of equality to all which means that a mediocre trainer gets the same quota as the one who excels. There is no incentive for excellence. The number of two year olds that a trainer can have has further been reduced to 15. The quota system encourages a trainer who otherwise may not have opted to buy a two year old to stock one. The effect of this system has resulted in bringing down the standard of racing as also total eclipse of Bangalore horses from classic picture not only locally but also on the national circuit. With the majority of trainers only wanting to pull off gambles by any means, the governance itself is under pressure under such circumstances.

If more horses are with good stables, there will be less problems of governance. This in turn helps in better quality racing. But the authorities seem to think otherwise.

The club also encourages trainers to use regular races as mock races. This is because there are many conditions imposed for giving a horse mock race. The authorities perhaps don`t mind regular races to be used as a mock race. One cannot understand why authorities are loathing allowing professionals to get their wards ready in a mock race. A number of horses which would be coming back from a setback need a mock race. Some horses need an educative run as a corrective to the problems that the horse may have faced. The mock races also help to get the horse spot on for a race. Why should there be reluctance in giving this facility? Bangalore is the only centre which believes that mock races should not be given which is not the case anywhere in the world. The other day at Mumbai, after the last race of the concluding day of the season, there was a mock race where many of the horses which were going to come to participate in the summer season ran. While local horses race after a lay off, the outstation horses naturally run with an advantage.

Several times mile races go void for lack of eight participants even it concerns the highest category race. The availability of horses in the higher categories are less and as such, insisting on eight horses as compulsory for running a race should be reviewed. Even if there are six horses in these classes, there would be betting on more horse than one could see in a full-fledged field of 12 horses in a Class VB race.

Quality and not quantity should be the guiding factor but unfortunately there is reluctance to think creatively. Creativity means thinking, albeit in different way to what one usually thinks.