The Bangalore Turf Club should fix a time frame for conducting enquiries. At present, the enquiries drag on for several months with pressure from power groups ensuring that the Stewards cannot take independent decision based on merit. Instead, they are often pressurized to dilute the cases much to the detriment of the integrity of the sport. Compromises have become the name of the game with the result; the image of the sport has taken a severe dent in recent times.

The authorities need to complete enquiries within a time frame. The Appeal Board should then dispose of the appeal within a week so that justice is done. Justice delayed is justice denied goes the saying. In racing, it takes an eternity for authorities to take any action unless of course the person concerned does not have enough pull to put pressure on the Stewards.

The minutes of the meeting of enquiries should be made available within a day of the Stewards taking their decision. There should be effort to do everything with a deadline in mind. The Stewards body should not become like civil courts where cases drag on for years. The BTC Stewards are not saddled with so many cases for them to take so much time to come to any decision. They can sit on a continuous basis and arrive at a conclusion using due diligence and applying principals of natural justice and fair play. This does not mean merely postponing the enquiry for months.

The professionals Stewards should be given the importance they deserve. Often we find people elected as Stewards not in a position to read a race. Once anybody is elected as Steward, they need to take a refresher course in order to be in a position to decide on crucial matters. Along with the inability to read a race, some of the Stewards appear to be vindictive in most of their actions.

There is need for stringent measures to ensure that the sport does not slip further. I believe that the professionals should not be allowed to use the mobile phones half an hour before the first race till the end of the last race of the day. The authorities including officials too should deposit their mobile phones and the club should give them the phones for use on race days in order to ensure that there is no misuse of phones. Call monitoring is the surest way of ensuring that racing is protected from so many influences that can have a bearing on the integrity of the sport. This will also avoid all speculations among the members and public about the information passed on from professionals. This will also avoid favors and vindictiveness on the part of the powers that be.

Another area which needs immediate attention is with regard to breach of medication rules. The trainers are vicariously responsible if their horses tests positive for a prohibited substance. It has become fashionable to blame everything on contamination. It is the responsibility of the trainer to select the feed and the supplements and he should be well aware of the consequences. If a horses tests positive, he has to be held accountable. It is easy to say that the feed was contaminated or water was polluted. The trainer needs to take due care to ensure that his wards race clean. Contamination cannot be accepted unless the problem is contagious. If one or two stables have their horses coming positive when horses belonging to other stables don`t test positive despite using the same feed and water, how can the theory of contamination hold?

Contamination is like a contagious disease which affects several stables at the same time and does not affect horses selectively. Some of the senior trainers have been coming positive for several of their horses. A trainer cannot absolve himself of the responsibility if his horse comes positive. Mitigating circumstances can only reduce the quantum of punishment but not eliminate it totally. The authorities are erring repeatedly by being selective in the award of punishments. The rule must be applied uniformly.

There is need to have a neutral appeal board like in cricket to eliminate pressure situations which often decide the course of an enquiry . This will also bring down the charge of vindictiveness or partially to a great extent. Till such time the neutral body is formed, the appeal board members should be elected directly by the members of the club. Right now those who are nominated to the board by the elected members are overruling them very often. This is an incongruous situation.

I had raised the issue of shoes that a horse should sport a few years back. Now several trainers using heavy shoes to give runs to horses have come to light. Several enquiries are pending on this matter. It is time the authorities took a decision to ban use of steel shoes in races. Or if a horse cannot be shod aluminum shoes, then the horse which runs in steel shoes should sport the same shoes eight times before change is permitted.

There is need for the authorities to take severe action on benami training. Now there are several extension counters of existing trainers who do proxy training. Each of the trainers who have been licensed should be an independent identity both in terms of the place the stables are located as also the stable staff. The authorities should take strong action if benami training is done. If they think that the existing quota is inadequate, they can consider increasing the quota instead of allowing this sort of an anomaly to creep in.

The turf club has been unable to make any rules with regard to retirement of professionals. Their writ does not seem to run. The authorities should take decisions on this regard and have the courage of conviction to enforce them. They need not take the concurrence of people whom they are trying to govern. They are vested with powers and they should use them discreetly to enforce the rules instead of creating power centres that they have allowed to sprout wings.

(A V Jayaprakash is a former Karnataka State Cricket Captain and ICC Test Umpire. Jayaprakash has been a race horse owner for long. Passion To Perform which won the Deccan Fillies Trial Stakes and Arrogant Approach are some of the best horses that he has owned.)