Winter season from Friday

 The Bangalore Winter Meeting, featuring 236 races over 28 race days, will commence on Friday, with a revised structure of payment of stake money in place.

Hari Mohan Naidu, chairman of the Bangalore Turf Club, told a press conference that the payment structure has been changed because of a case which they won in the Karnataka High Court on September 26.

“In the light of a judgment of the High Court of Karnataka which held that Section 194 (b) of the IT Act of 1961 is not applicable to stake money, the entire structure of payment of stake money and subsidy has been revised,” he said.

He added: “All subsidies except Oats Subsidy has been withdrawn and the Club has reverted to the earlier policy of promoting stake oriented racing.” Stakes would now be distributed among owners, trainers and jockeys in the ratio of 82.5%, 10% and 7.5%.  The current payment structure had been put in place for the last two seasons. 

This has a profound effect on the estimated subsidy to owners in the upcoming season. While the subsidy to owners totalled Rs 1.63 crores in the 2013-14 Winter Meeting, they would get nothing for the 2014-15 Winter Season. 

The aggregate of stakes, incentives and subsidies for the 2014-15 season involve a total outlay of Rs 18.12 crores – an increase of 1.13 crores over the 2013-14 season — the main reason being an increase of 2 crore of outlay for stakes alone.

Naidu said the Indian Pattern Committee has accorded Grade III status for three more races during the winter calendar – Bangalore Turf Club Cup, New Year Cup and the Sprinters Trial Stakes. 

This was possible because of the revised norms according grading status to the races. “The change of norms also mean that BTC has the highest number of graded races as a percentage of total number of races run at Bangalore as compared to other centres,” Naidu said.  

There is also an increase of Rs 10 lakhs from Rs 50 lakhs for the Bangalore Derby (Gr I), which will be held on the Republic Day. 

In all, there is an aggregate increase in prize money of Rs 25 lakhs for the four classic races and an added Rs 20 lakhs for the nine sweepstake races. 

Special race days: Nov 7: Rajyotsava Trophy (Gr III), Nov 22: Ashoka Chakra Cup, Nov 29: Bangalore 1000 Guineas (Gr II), Dec 6: Bangalore Turf Club Trophy (Gr III), Dec 13: Bangalore 2000 Guineas (Gr II), Jan 2: Chief Minister’s Trophy, Jan 3: Bangalore Oaks (Gr II) and New Year Cup (Gr III), Jan 16: Karnataka Racehorse Owners’ Association Million, Jan 26: Bangalore Derby and Bangalore Racecourse 152nd Year Commemoration Trophy, Jan 30: Sprinters Trial Stakes (Gr III), Feb 7: Stayers Trial Stakes, Feb 14: Bangalore Winter Million (Gr III), Feb 21: Governors’ Trophy, Mar 14: Bangalore Juvenile Million (Gr III).

Reconstituted board of appeal: Chiarman: AC Satish Chandra; Members: MN Reddi, ISN Prasad, S Chockalingam, R Ramakrishnan, Shivkumar Kheny.