Latest news with #BangaloreTurfClub
Hindustan Times
15-07-2025
- Sport
- Hindustan Times
Bengaluru's long history of backing the right horse
This past Sunday, July 13, the most glittering race of the 105-year-old Bangalore Turf Club's summer season, the Zavaray S Poonawalla Bangalore Summer Derby, was won by the favourite, Fynbos, who, with this win, claimed her fourth championship. The excitement that continues to surround the racing season is an ode to the city's longstanding equestrian culture, lovingly stewarded by its rulers and administrators through the ages. If Tipu Sultan is credited with founding the Kunigal Stud Farm, the oldest continuously operated stud farm in India, the Mysore Maharajas, like several British Residents and Commissioners of Mysore, were passionate horsemen. More recently, homegrown business baron Vijay Mallya revitalised horse racing in the city, after his company, United Racing & Bloodstock Breeders Ltd, won the bid for the lease of the Kunigal Stud Farm for 30 years (1992-2022). This Sunday, the Zavaray S Poonawalla Bangalore Summer Derby, was won by the favourite, Fynbos, who, with this win, claimed her fourth championship (HT photo) Coincidentally, yesterday, July 14, was the 231st birthday of one such horse-loving Mysore royal, Mummadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar; it was during his reign that the very first recorded horse race in Bangalore was run, on October 14, 1811. Unfortunately for Mummadi, his significant contributions to the fashioning of Mysore into a culturally vibrant, educationally forward, liberal-thinking, inclusive, and yes, horse-loving space, the very attributes that define Bangalore today, are not celebrated enough. For although his reign lasted close to seven decades (1799-1868), it fell to Mummadi's fate that he would only be the titular ruler for 37 of those years. Mummadi was only five when Tipu Sultan was killed in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War in May 1799, ending the 40-year-long reign of Hyder Ali and Tipu. Throughout this period, Mummadi's adoptive grandmother, the Chanakya-esque Maharani Lakshmi Ammanni Devi, had kept the possibility of a Wadiyar scion reclaiming the Mysore throne alive, parleying with the British and to secure this for her family. On June 30, less than two months after Tipu's death, her dream was realized when Mummadi was crowned king. In January 1811, the British Resident in the Mysore court, Arthur Henry Cole (after whom Bangalore's Cole's Road and Cole's Park are named), transferred the reins of state to 16-year-old Mummadi. It was with Cole that Mummadi came to the race course in Bangalore, then located in Domlur, for the city's first-recorded racing fixture. In 1824, Aga Aly Asker, youngest of three brothers from a horse-breeding family of Shiraz in Persia, arrived with his horses in Bangalore Cantonment, having heard that there was brisk business to be done here. To Aly Asker's delight, not only was he able to garner British custom, he also went on to become equestrian advisor, and good friend, to the deposed Maharaja. By this time, however, the inexperienced Mummadi, not quite cut out for the cloak-and-dagger world of politics, was battling internal rebellions and uprisings at every turn. In 1831, his government was dismissed, and Mysore came under the direct control of the British; it would not return to the Wadiyars until 1881, 13 years after Mummadi's passing. Perhaps relieved that he no longer had to deal with the exigencies of administering a kingdom, Mummadi proceeded to write, support artists and musicians, play board games, solve thorny never-solved chess puzzles, and enjoy his horses. In 1834, an East India company officer called Mark Cubbon took over as Chief Commissioner of Mysore. He was fair-minded, had great respect for the local language and customs, and loved horses to distraction with a passion. Slowly but surely, he won the trust of both the king his government had dismissed, and the Persian horse-whisperer. That friendship, and others like it, would set the tone for the city to come – one in which provenance, political positions, and cultural differences would be set aside in the joy of a shared passion and a common humanity. Simple horse sense, what? (Roopa Pai is a writer who has carried on a longtime love affair with her hometown Bengaluru)
The Hindu
13-07-2025
- Sport
- The Hindu
Veteran race horse trainer Ganapathy retires
Veteran horse trainer S. Ganapathy retired after a remarkable career at the Bangalore Turf Club on Sunday, July 13. Ganapathy obtained his trainer's license in the year 2000 winter season. He had a total of 945 winners in a 25 years racing career. His first winner was Sandawar, and he claimed his first classic with Fantastic Belle in the Bangalore Oaks. Ganapathy also won the Poonawalla Breeders Multi-Million five times. Mystical, the best horse in Indian racing history, competed in Dubai and won twice. Ganapathy is the first Indian trainer to win in the famed Dubai Racing Carnival. He won 25 Derbys, 4 Indian Turf Invitation Cups, 18 1000 Guineas, 16, 2000 Guineas, 12 Oaks, nine Fillies Trial Stakes and six Colts Trial Stakes. He was felicitated by BTC Chairman Mr. R. Manjunath Ramesh.
The Hindu
19-05-2025
- Sport
- The Hindu
Bengaluru races scheduled for Tuesday cancelled
The Stewards of the Bangalore Turf Club have decided to cancel the races to be held on Tuesday (May 20), postponed from Sunday (May 18), due to underfoot conditions not being conducive for racing. However, the War Hammer Million has been postponed to May 24 (Saturday) and the acceptors already published for the above race will be hold good. The declaration of the jockeys will be made afresh.
The Hindu
15-05-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
Bengaluru summer meeting from May 17
The Bengaluru summer meeting will commence on May 17 (Saturday) and conclude on August 1 (Friday). Racing will be conducted over 24 days during the meeting and will mainly be held on Saturdays and Sundays except during the last week. Briefing the media, R. Manjunath Ramesh, chairman & senior steward of the Bangalore Turf Club, said a totally duly prize money (including trophies) of ₹15,71,95,000 is estimated to be paid during the meeting 2025 and would be approximately ₹18 crore including divisions. He added that for the first time, races over a distance of 1,300 and 1,500 metres have been introduced. The Bangalore Summer Derby, sponsored by Mr. Suresh Paladugu of HPSL, will have a guaranteed prize money of ₹2 crore inclusive of the club's contribution and equal contribution of ₹1 crore by the sponsor. The R.R. Byramji Million, sponsored by Darius Byramji, has a prize money of ₹11 lakh with equal contribution from the club and the sponsor. The Hooves Of Steel Million, sponsored by Rajendran Sabanayagam, also has a prize money of ₹11 lakh with equal contribution from the club and the sponsor For the Coromandel Gromor Bangalore Million, sponsored by Arun Alagappan, the added money is ₹10 lakh inclusive of the club's contribution of ₹5 lakh and an equal contribution by the sponsor. The Five Star Shipping Million, sponsored by K.N. Dhunjiboy, has added money is ₹10 lakh inclusive of the club's contribution of ₹5 lakh and an equal contribution by the sponsor. The board of appeal for the summer meeting: Shivkumar Kheny (chairman), S. Chockalingam, B. Dayananda IPS, S.K. Raghunandan, Ritesh Kumar Singh IAS, and Zeyn Mirza. Racing dates: May: 17, 18, 24, 25, 31; June: 1, 7, 8, 14, 15, 21, 22, 28, 29; July: 5, 6, 12, 13, 19, 20, 26, 27, 31; August: 1.
Hindustan Times
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Horse power: The bronze equestrians of Bengaluru
In less than two weeks, Bangalore's summer racing season will kick off at the century-old Bangalore Turf Club (BTC) in the heart of the city. Way back in 1916, Maharaja Nalvadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar leased out 92 acres of prime real estate in the neighbourhood known as High Grounds to the stewards of the Bangalore races, under the condition that the land be used exclusively for horse racing. On May 20, 1921, those stewards created the Bangalore Race Club (which, in 1956, became the BTC). Horses and horsepersons have been around in Bangalore well before the BTC, of course, as the number of equestrian statues dotting the city reveal. The oldest is the statue of Sir Mark Cubbon, Commissioner of Bangalore from 1834 to 1861. Respected both by the locals and his fellow officers, the horse-mad Cubbon personally owned 60 fine steeds, which he stabled in the extensive grounds of his home (today the Karnataka Raj Bhavan) in the High Grounds. His statue, cast in bronze by Baron Marochetti, a Chelsea sculptor who was the toast of London society, arrived in Bangalore in 1866, and eventually found a home in the park that was named after him. About a hundred metres behind Cubbon, in the forecourt of the Vidhana Soudha, stand two equestrian statues unveiled in March 2023, mere weeks before the Karnataka state elections. One features Kempegowda I, who established, some two kilometres to the south of his statue, the original pete of Bengaluru in 1537. In recent years, giant (non-equestrian) statues of the founding father – recognisable by his turban, his naked sword, and the ultimate symbol of south Indian machismo, a luxuriant moustache – have mushroomed all over the city, including at our eponymous, beautiful airport. (Similar iconography marks the statues of 19th century Belagavi revolutionary Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna, after whom the City railway station is named - the only difference is that KSR holds a shield.) The other statue is of Basaveshwara, saint, poet, political administrator and reformer from north Karnataka, who launched a radical movement for social change in the 12th century, and whose deeply inclusive philosophy, expressed as simple, accessible Kannada poetry, is evoked to this day, often in the well of the Karnataka legislative assembly behind him. Very close to this statue, on the Race Course Road, is another, bigger, equestrian statue of Basava. Both statues are distinguished by Basava's crown, his sheathed sword, and the linga at his throat. Basava's followers, the Lingayats, form one of the two most populous, powerful caste groups in the state; the other is the Vokkaligas, to which community Kempegowda belonged. The only equestrian statue of a woman is to be found next to the Puttanna Chetty Town Hall on JC Road. From atop a pedestal that most resembles an upside-down wedding cake, the valiant Rani Chennamma of Kittur (in Belagavi district) presides fiercely over one of the most congested junctions in the city. In 1824, decades before Lord Dalhousie enforced the infamous Doctrine of Lapse, which did not recognize adopted children as royal heirs, Chennamma went to war against the East India Company to protect the rights of her own adopted son. An early victory turned her into a Kannada folk hero for the ages; sadly, she was arrested soon after and died in captivity in 1829. In the verdant surrounds of Lalbagh stands the equestrian statue of Chamarajendra Wadiyar X, another adopted heir, who took the reins of Mysore back in 1881, following half a century of direct British rule. Executed in classical European style, and flanked by the goddesses of Liberty and Justice, the beautiful bronze statue is a tribute to a visionary ruler who ushered Mysore into a brave new age of science, modern industry, and representative government. And then there is the equestrian statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji, who could never be mistaken for anyone else, on the ramparts of an ersatz fortress at the Sankey Tank in Sadashivanagar. Bangalore was once the fiefdom of Shivaji's father, Shahaji Bhosale, and Chhatrapati spent a few happy years of his boyhood here, in blissful ignorance of what the future would bring. (Roopa Pai is a writer who has carried on a longtime love affair with her hometown Bengaluru)
