An­dre Bap­tiste

In the ear­ly 1990s, horse rac­ing was shift­ed from turf to sand pri­mar­i­ly to fa­cil­i­tate year-round rac­ing since rac­ing was be­ing cen­tralised and it was be­lieved that a turf sur­face in the Caribbean would not stand up to year-round rac­ing.

One of the main rea­sons for this was the weath­er and the pound­ing of the hooves which, over time would re­sult in un­even patch­es on the track, un­less ex­ten­sive main­te­nance was un­der­tak­en.

We see the wis­dom of this de­ci­sion to­day, through the fre­quen­cy with which sched­uled turf races have to be can­celled due to the poor con­di­tion of the sur­face.

This sug­gests that enough prop­er mea­sures have not been es­tab­lished to cor­rect this aw­ful tale of qual­i­ty, hors­es be­ing in­jured on the turf sur­face. Per­haps some more con­cen­trat­ed work on this sur­face by per­sons with ad­e­quate knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence would as­sist.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, while that move was tak­en to lev­el the sur­face (so to speak), T&T con­tin­ues to chase the curve ball when it comes to tru­ly lev­el­ling the play­ing field on which horse rac­ing is be­ing asked to com­pete.

This anal­o­gy is most ap­pro­pri­ate and truth­ful when we look at the com­pe­ti­tion that the Ari­ma Race Club (ARC) has to con­tend with from the pri­vate mem­bers' clubs and the many pri­vate book­mak­ers in this coun­try.

Un­less and un­til those in au­thor­i­ty (al­so known as the Gov­ern­ment here­in) de­cide that they will deal with this sit­u­a­tion, rather than con­done the prac­tices by ig­nor­ing the ob­vi­ous and tak­ing no no­tice­able ac­tion, the re­liance on their cof­fers will not im­prove sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

Pro­cras­ti­na­tion is one of the worst sins of any ad­min­is­tra­tion and those that look af­ter the af­fairs of horse rac­ing are right­ful­ly fed up of the ex­cus­es and false promis­es. Per­haps the new min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath is the man to bring change.

Let us ex­am­ine the sit­u­a­tion with pri­vate mem­bers' clubs. Every­one in this coun­try knows that casi­nos are il­le­gal here.

Every­one knows that the de­f­i­n­i­tion of a casi­no is a pub­lic place that ac­com­mo­dates cer­tain types of gam­bling ac­tiv­i­ties.

Every­one knows that to avoid be­ing la­belled a casi­no and there­fore be­ing il­le­gal, the phe­nom­e­non of a pri­vate mem­bers' club arose.

As a pri­vate club, they are not open to the pub­lic and so there­fore lie out­side of the de­f­i­n­i­tion of a casi­no and as such, are not il­le­gal.

Over the years since the leg­is­la­tion was im­ple­ment­ed, the num­ber of pri­vate mem­bers' clubs has ex­plod­ed from low 20s to maybe triple dig­its. We all know that is a farce.

Any mem­ber of the pub­lic can vis­it a pri­vate mem­bers' club by sim­ply be­com­ing a pri­vate mem­ber at the point of en­try. Since every­one knows it is a farce, how do we in­ter­pret the Gov­ern­ment's "in­creas­ing" of the levy charged on the ta­bles at the pri­vate mem­bers' club.

Does that mean that suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments were not aware that they were im­plic­it­ly con­don­ing the fla­grant flaunt­ing of the laws of the coun­try?

Since there is no ob­vi­ous rea­son for casi­nos to be il­le­gal (those on the re­li­gious right notwith­stand­ing), and every­one knows that pri­vate mem­bers' clubs are re­al­ly casi­nos, and the Gov­ern­ment is pre­pared to in­crease the tax­es on their ac­tiv­i­ties, why not just lift the ban on casi­nos?

Is there a vest­ed in­ter­est in keep­ing casi­nos banned so as to al­low pri­vate mem­bers' clubs to flour­ish? If so, some­one needs to ask the ques­tion "whose vest­ed in­ter­est?"

The re­al­i­ty is that the Ari­ma Race Club can­not get a "li­cense" to be a casi­no since it can­not dis­guise it­self as a pri­vate mem­bers' club. So it has to com­pete on an un­even play­ing field with casi­nos, sor­ry, pri­vate mem­bers' clubs. The point is that the more tax is paid, the less the pro­mot­er will have avail­able to of­fer to the gam­bler as win­nings.

With re­spect to the book­mak­ers, the is­sues and un­even play­ing field are even more egre­gious. First of all, while the book­mak­ers add the 10 per­cent tax to the cost of the bet placed by the punter, the Ari­ma Race Club deducts the 10 per­cent from the cost of the bet placed by the punter.

Prop­er gov­er­nance, a trans­par­ent and equal tax regime, and ad­her­ence to all of the laws of this land are re­quired be­fore the play­ing field out­side of the run­ning rails can be lev­elled. The fi­nal ques­tion is who will have the strength to bell that cat? PART 2 will be next week.