The winning post

Back in the saddle as chairman of the Royal Western India Turf Club (RWITC) after a five-year hiatus is Dr Cyrus Poonawalla. With over 1,000 members casting their vote in Bombay at the Club’s 90th annual general meeting on December 13, 2005, Poonawalla strode comfortably into the home stretch with 692 votes.

With much dust kicked up before the election, at the starting gates were five members of the Poonawalla faction ranged against the group headed by sitting chairman Khushroo Dhunjibhoy who had been on ruffled turf through the year 2004, with the Bombay High Court granting a stay on the proposed project to commercially develop the Mahalaxmi race course land. Terming the election as a vote for change, Poonawalla’s immediate priority, he says, is to bring back the image of the sport, to clean up and tighten its conduct. "I want to enhance the color, fun and frolic, to widen the search for sponsors and increase revenues. That is my immediate goal,” says the chairman of the Poonawalla Group which has diversified interests in vaccines, engineering and horse breeding and racing.

Cyrus (left) and Zavaray Poonawalla

Declining to comment on the development project with Pegasus Clubs and Resorts Private Limited as the matter is sub judice, Poonawalla indicated he would state his views "when the time comes.” Right now, he asserts, "the success of what I want to do depends on the cooperation of my colleagues.” Is there going to be cooperation or is bickering going to stymie his efforts, he muses.

Poonawalla is also the new chairman of the Stewards body which supervizes racing. Ardeshir Narielwala is the chairman of the Board of Appeal, with D. N. Adenwalla, Byram N. Jeejeebhoy and Zavaray Poonawalla among its members.

Zavaray Poonawalla is the chairman of the National Horse Breeding Society of India (NHBSI), which facilitated the establishment at substantial cost of a quarantine facility for race horses at the Mahalaxmi race course. In September 2005, this quarantine facility was recognized by the racing authorities in Dubai. In a pathbreaking development, Indian thoroughbreds do not now need to undergo the month-long arduous quarantine in the US and they can be flown directly to Dubai for the international racing festival held from January to March in the sheikhdom.