Bangalore Winter Meeting starts from Nov 9

Bangalore, Nov 7 (UNI) The Bangalore Winter races begins here on November nine with a record stakes money of RS 12.77 crore on the offer, Bangalore Turf Club Chairman and Senior Steward Jayant Shah said today.

Talking to newsmen here, he said that there was an increase of more than 10 per cent in the stake money as it was Rs 1106 lakh during the Winter Meeting last year.

He said the season would have 34 race days to be held mainly on Fridays and Saturdays. The stakes amount had been raised by more than 10 per cent from Rs 11.06 crore offered during the previous season. 70 Jockeys and 46 'A' licence trainers we expected to take part.

The Special Race days included the Fernhill's Palace Bangalore 1000 Guineas Gr-II (Nov 24), The Bangalore Turf Club Trophy (Dec 1), The Harvins Bangalore 2000 Guineas Gr-II (Dec 8), The Kelachandra New Millennium Cup, The Bangalore Oaks Gr-II (Jan 5), The Chief Minister's Trophy (Jan 12), The Poonawalla Bangalore Derby Gr-I (Jan 25), The D P Sharma Memorial Sprinters Trial Stakes (Feb 1), the Stayers Trial Stakes (Feb 9), The P Dayanand Pai and P Satish Pai Bangalore Winter Million Gr-III (Feb 16), The Governor's Trophy (Feb 23) and The Heeroji Lad Bangalore Juvenile Million Gr-III (Mar 29).

Mr Shah said that for the first time a procedure would be introduced from January One where in the physical weight of horses participating in a race would be recorded at the time of identifying horses and would be simultaneously notified on the CCTV system.

Replying to a question, he said that there was proposal to added 25 more computer terminal counters to the present 475. New off couse betting centres would be opened in Raichur and Gulbarga shortly, he added.

UNI