LAHORE, April 7: The work on the modernisation of the Lahore Race Club (LRC) is more than half way through but going on at a snails pace.

The home of the Pakistan Derby, the site is located some  15 kilometres from city’s centre in south along the railway  track in and around the industrial town of Kot Lakhpat and provides an ideal location for the sport.

The extension of stewards room, adjoining conference room and structures of two additional public stands has already been built and were being given final touches.

The project estimated to cost at Rs12m involve increasing elite seating capacity to 500 and extension and conversion of existing public stands into modern and well- equipped stands for the comfort of race-fans both in winter and summer seasons.

Under one public stand an administration block will be set up while beneath the other a well furnished cafeteria will be built.

Both the race tracks has already been developed and the grass track relaid on international standards. They are fitted  with automatic water sprinkling system. In order to create a  healthy environment and enhance the beauty of the area a  landscaped central  park and a play land for children and a  restaurant for families has been included in the project. These will be the part of the second phase of the plan.

on completion this will not only help LRC to boost its income but provide an ideal sporting and recreational facility for the public. This will also induce respectable people to visit races and join the ranks of horse-owners as it used to be in  the old race club complex on Gulberg Road in the heart of the city.

The LRC secretary Ata Ali Khan has expressed the hope  that when completed the provincial metropolis of Punjab will  have a most modern racing  facility that will attract  more  and  more people.

 It will  also  induce national and multi-national enterprises to sponsor cup events. Already a headway has been made in this direction. This will further improve the standard of racing  and quality of horse-breeding, which had shown a steep fall during the last decade.

The first phase of the modernisation was to complete  before the Pakistan Derby in March last.