They Murder Horses, Don’t They?

MAY 2001 - I have been once to the Lahore Race Club and never to the Karachi Race Club and I know next to nothing about how races are managed, how odds are worked and all the rest of the advanced math that goes with it, but something terrible is going on with the country’s racing circuit. A report last week in the newspapers makes chilling reading even with mercury coasting along in the mid forties.

The KRC is closed and for all practical purposes. Quite dead. The families that earn a livelihood from running the stables and managing the horses are starving. With no races for the past four months, there is an air of gloom at the KRC and there seems no hope of any improvement. In fact, the second day following the report, there was another calamity that struck those marooned at the KRC. The power supply has been cut off, which means no water and more misery. A sum of Rs 455,000 is owed to the KESC, which has rightly cut off power supply. There are widespread stories of financial mismanagement and apparently many have made off with huge sums of money. There is reportedly a fund for the jockeys, that has been cleaned out and Rs 4.4 million has disappeared without a sign. The rest of the report makes equally dismal reading.

No one seems to be coming forward to accept responsibility. The races were called off because of this cursed fixation about what constitutes gambling and what doesn’t. The government is losing enormous sums of money that were once coming into its coffers from the KRC but it doesn’t seem that officials are losing any beauty sleep over it. There is a management committee of sorts at the KRC, which according to the newspaper story, is conspicuous for all the things it hasn’t done. If members have disappeared into the sunset – riding no doubt, with the money, who is going to catch them since in all probability, the custodians of the trust are the very robbers too – the classic scam situation of Pakistan where those who are left to guard the store, disappear at the first opportunity with the goods. In Pakistan, every swindler knows, crime pays. There were supposed to be millions of rupees in the KRC but there isn’t a penny now. The members have simply vanished or have lost all interest or taken all the money and taken a hike. Who knows?

A couple of years ago, I was asked by Fakhar and Chandi to study the LRC and come back with some proposals for raising revenues and attracting a better class of people to the LRC. A group of us went to the outskirts of the city to find a spread that had all the potential for becoming not only a place to go and watch races, but also an ideal spot for picnics. Its proximity to the city was a plus point but once inside the grounds, it was happily far away from the noise and the confusion. I saw enormous opportunity here and sent a preliminary proposal and there the matter stopped. It was then rumoured that barring a few, the gentry as it is called here, no longer frequented the races because of the stigma of gambling and our muddled reaction to this whole business. No gentlemen or gentle ladies go to the races anymore. The place is a viper’s nest. Junkies, crooks, frauds, black marketers, criminals and smugglers mingle cheek by jowl. Races, or whatever they are called, are fixed and some kind of pay offs were built into each race the results of which is a foregone conclusion. It sounds terribly murky and sordid and probably true.

There are voices of protest asking for immediate action by the government (ha,ha,ha), but if the recent fiasco over The Kidney Centre is anything to go by, the one thing the Sindh Government can’t be held responsible for, is clear and logical thinking. What justice or enlightened thinking can be expected to flow from the gentlemen who lord over Karachi is anybody’s guess but point out what should be done and be rest assured that the opposite will happen, if anything happens that is. At KRC, hundreds of lives are at stake. The majority are poor who barely fall into the category of people but lie somewhere between vegetables and the lowest rungs of animal life. With no power, no water, no jobs and no food, things must be cheerful at KRC.

There is another dimension to this sorry tale. The horses. In all this sordid business, if there is an innocent party, it is the animals. They have committed no sin, done nothing wrong. The long line of thoroughbreds who drew crowds, have only known one thing – to run and run fast. They have thrilled crowds year after year, race after race and the sight of a pack rounding the curve, the sound of a hundred hooves thudding into the turf created the magic that pulled people to the races everywhere in the world. There is of course a great deal of money to be made and lost.

At Karachi over 40 of the great horses have died premature deaths, through neglect, lack of food and diseases that were easily preventable. Abandoned by heartless owners, left to the mercy of keepers some of whom did all they could, the horses have died, one after another. Boski Ridge, Bengal Tiger, Snow Chief, Chotta, Hello Chief – the list is long and sad. Horses like Little Jahil and Great Shah are starving and barely alive. What sin have they committed to face a death they don’t deserve and where are the owners who pampered and spoilt them when the going was good? Undoubtedly, more will die and no one wants to waste any time or resources on dumb animals. We know horses can’t complain, can’t take out processions or even stage hunger strikes. They have no supporters except a handful of keepers who are also starving.

This is not a happy land for animals because it is largely populated by brutes, but since the Good Lord created all living things and surely horses must rank amongst His most splendid species, there is retribution ahead, but that’s another story and one we won’t be around to confirm. For the moment it is sad to see how indifferent we all are to the things in life that truly matter. Our loss surely.