With Baskaran Bas­sawh elect­ing to not con­test the elec­tion for the Pres­i­den­cy of the Ari­ma Race Club (ARC) on Au­gust 11 at San­ta Rosa Park, Ari­ma, the way was paved for for­mer sec­ond vice-pres­i­dent Robert Bernard to be­come the new Pres­i­dent of the Ari­ma Race Club.

Last Sun­day's meet­ing end­ed eight months of tur­moil in the rac­ing in­dus­try af­ter the res­ig­na­tion of Bri­an Stollmey­er in Oc­to­ber last year.

How­ev­er, on May 26 the elec­tion of of­fi­cers was post­poned fol­low­ing an in­junc­tion filed by mem­bers John O'Brien and Robert Bernard. The in­junc­tion re­lates to the 58 new mem­bers who were el­i­gi­ble to vote for all po­si­tions ex­cept the post of pres­i­dent.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, the or­der was grant­ed by judge Na­dia Kan­ga­loo and it stat­ed that the AGM can come off as planned but there can be no elec­tion of of­fi­cers. In­cum­bent pres­i­dent Baskaran Bas­sawh and act­ing sec­re­tary Si­ta Rag­o­nanan were giv­en a fort­night to an­swer ques­tions raised by O'Brien and Bernard about the el­i­gi­bil­i­ty of cer­tain mem­bers even though their nom­i­na­tions are not in com­pli­ance with the rules of the ARC.

Bas­sawh was the in­ter­im Pres­i­dent fol­low­ing Stollmey­ers res­ig­na­tion but his lead­er­ship was ques­tioned con­tin­u­ous­ly dur­ing his tenure.

At Sun­day's An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM) Robert Bernard was elect­ed un­op­posed to take the reigns of lo­cal rac­ing for the next two years.

Own­er of lead­ing thor­ough­bred Gen­er­al JN, Jer­ry Narace is the First vice-Pres­i­dent. Train­er Rolf Bar­to­lo and own­er Chevan Ma­haraj will serve as Board Mem­bers of the ARC Man­age­ment com­mit­tee for the same pe­ri­od.

John O'Brien who was a for­mer ARC Pres­i­dent will al­so sit on the ARC Board as a mem­ber along with for­mer Bet­ting Levy Board Chair­man Ka­ma Ma­haraj who now holds the po­si­tion of ARC Sec­ond-Vice Pres­i­dent.

Bas­sawh wished the new ex­ec­u­tive well and hope that all will be well in rac­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go now that he is not at the helm.