A page from the past...

Though the BRC came into existence 88 years ago, Bangalore did have a race course event before that.

The course was located behind what is now the Bangalore Military School. The very primitive course barely catered to the needs of the British. The Maharaja of Mysore agreed to move the course to a better location and handed the land where the current course stands.

History was made on a winter morning in 1920, with the new course coming up. Major RHOD Paterson, Leslie Miller, Major JM Holmes and CN Suryanarain were the men behind the inception of the club, with a membership fee of Rs 20 for men and free membership women. People flocked in numbers to be a part of the new club. Col J Desaraj Urs was the first ever secretary of the BTC Committee that was formed on March 13, 1921.

An agreement that was signed on September 9, 1923 by the Maharaja of Mysore and the Stewards of the club said that the land (which incuded the present Seshadri road and the Race Course road) that was given to the BTC will remain on a ‘perpetual lease’ so long as the land is used for racing purposes. In 1968, S Nijalingappa, the then chief minister of Karnataka asked the committee to relocate the course. Again, in 1983, the Ramakrishna Hegde government offered land in Jakkur but the BTC committee decided against it, feeling that it was too far from the city.

But a cruel blow was struck in 1983 when the then chief minister Gundu Rao changed the ‘perpetual lease’ period and that runs out on December 31, 2009.

Probably the biggest move against the BTC happened in 2007, when the JDS-BJP coalition government attempted to ban racing but the club stood the test that time.

BTC has been a part of Bangalore’s history for close to a century now but it faces a difficult future as it tries hard to persuade the government into extending the lease until other arrangements are made. One thing is for sure, even if the landmark ceases to exist, the legacy of the BTC will live on.