October 23, 2007	Tuesday	Shawwal 10, 1428

LAHORE, Oct 22: The Lahore Race Club (LRC) has made a belated announcement of complete schedule of its winter meetings, which are already in progress since last month, offering attractive prizes in cash and prestige for runners winning first three positions in events during the meetings.

The prospectus of the meetings to conclude on April 27 next year, was released to the press on Sunday, after it was approved by the LRC chairman, Tariq Aziz.

The seven-month racing programme is studded with one or more cup events each day depending upon the club’s resources and sponsorship coming forward, is framed to hold six to seven races a day. The meetings will be held on Sundays.

The prospectus elaborates all events, eligibility of the horses with formula to be adopted for the award of prize-money.

Although LRC management is following a policy of economic discipline minimizing its expenditure yet it has been generous enough to raise the stake-money for each class races, terms or classic, semi-classic or handicap events.

The most important race of the racing calendar will, as usual, be the Pakistan Derby 2008 to be held on March 2 with at least five additional cup events to be staged on Derby Day races.

The other noteworthy event is the prestigious Jinnah Cup allocated to the three-year-old colts and fillies and will be held on December 23.

The only living personality to be honoured by staging a cup event named after her is the British sovereign, Queen Elizabeth, the second, A cup race” Queen Elizabeth Cup” will be held on March 30. The queen had graced the Lahore Race Club by her presence in the 1960’s when the first cup event was held to honour her and she presided over the cup award ceremony. Since then the event was an annual feature in the racing calendar but was discontinued for unknown reasons. A couple of year’s back LRC chairman Tariq Aziz re-instituted the event because she was the only foreign head of state to visit the club.

Another important cup event is the Epsom Cup named after the Epsom Racecourse near London where the world famous Epsom Derby is held on the first Saturday of June every year. The cup will be staged on Jan 20.

The only horse to be honoured is the renowned Nero, who won most of the important races in the country and Nero Cup continues to be the important event to keep Nero’s memory alive as is in the annals of racing. It will be staged on February 3.

The other important events are Saif Cup (Nov 11), Zaheer-ud-Din Muhammad Babar Cup and Tariq Bin Zayad Cup (Nov 18), Sprinters Cup (Jan 6), Ghaznavi Cup, New Year Cup (Jan 6), Epsom Cup and Qutub-ud-Din Aibak Cup (Jan 20), 1000 Guineas Of Pakistan (Feb 3), Anarkali Cup (Feb 3), Derby Trials (Feb 17), Bin Qasim Cup (Feb 17) Ghazali Cup (Feb 24), Lahore Classic Cup, National Breeders Cup, Stewards Cup and LRC Cup (March 2 ), Mohy-ud-Din Muhammad Auranzeb Alamgir Cup (March 9), Shalimar Cup (March 23), April Cup (April 6) Spring Cup (April 13), Royal Ascort Cup (April 20) and Farewell Cup to conclude the programme on April 27.

In addition some other cup events have also been listed in the programme for different classes, classic and semi-classic and terms and handicap races. They are so arranged that the distance is increased gradually to give chance to settle runners over the distance. Some events have been left out and some other included, as their substitute.

Two stewards, Syed Parvaiz Hussain Shah and Khawaja M. Arif worked in co-ordination to assist LRC chairman Tariq Aziz in finalizing the prospectus, shaping and planning events. Some changes were brought to incorporate suggestions put forth by the horse-owners.

Talking to Dawn, they said the prospectus was designed with utmost care with a view to dispensing justice and fair play by providing equal opportunities to owners to race their horses and selection of events for different class races.

It is interesting to note that the LRC had been receiving enormous sponsorship and prize-money worth over rupees forty millions and paying in cash prizes during the last couple of years. The same is expected during the on-going season.