Latest update April 24th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 07, 2014 Sports
Dear Editor,
Here we go at it again. What are the functions of the Guyana Horse Racing Authority? A look into its functions shows clearly that the organisation should act as a facilitator to provide guidance and sometimes act as a referee when any breaches occur towards the rules governing the sport.
The functions of the GHRA have clearly been hijacked by the race track owners without any consideration towards the horses their owners, trainers, grooms and jockeys who are the ones faced with the daily costs in keeping the sport alive at tremendous loss, while the track owners are fighting for control of the Racing Authority to protect their ‘God given’ racing dates.
So we have forced upon us a Guyana Horse Racing Dates Authority, this problem will never be resolved unless the whole arrangement that they call the GHRA is changed.
For example the last election saw six race tracks with their representatives from each track voting, giving a total of eighteen votes Mr. Vic Oditt was elected President by gaining eleven of the eighteen votes.
A request was made by me as the horse owners representative for there to be equal representations with voting rights on the Guyana Horse Racing Authority so all the stakeholders would be represented and have a say, this was denied. So what we have here again same old grievances from the track owners, fighting over dates and using a Kangaroo court to remove their racing date President Mr. Vic Oditt.
We are living in a tropical country with May to June likely being our most rainy months so with the type of tracks currently hosting horse races no racing is possible maybe with the exception of Port Mourant. As July is upon us we are eager to have our horses out and racing, but guess what, the track owners have secured and owned the dates, that even a small Gymkhana track, Budhan Memorial Sports Complex, was given full voting rights of three members and racing dates to run races such as J class, K class and unclassified one and two.
We are going backwards my friends with no offence to the small track. When these track owners could have petitioned to have a large entity like Digicel, who was scheduled to run a multimillion dollars Digicel Cup on the 27th of July at Port Mourant Turf Club with the feature race carrying a first prize of over Three million Guyana dollars, stage their event and the small track withdraw. Instead they are claiming that the small Gymkhana track was given that date and must run, while Digicel and Port Mourant cannot carry off their meeting.
What is the message here to potential sponsors, Turfites, horse owners, trainers etc?
I am appealing to my fellow horse owners to wake from their slumber and let’s start to move forward by looking into our own interest and leave the tracks to fight among themselves over dates that nobody as far as I am concerned owns.
Looking forward for my fellow suffering horse owners to come together as a body and save this sport from some greedy, short sighted, arrogant and deceitful bunch that imposed themselves as the Guyana Horse Racing Authority, it’s a farce and cannot continue.
Colin Elcock
Horse Owners/Trainers
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