Gone are the days when sport mixed with socialising at the Lahore Race Club, the second-largest equine centre in the country.

Between 1947 and 1977, the race club`s festive atmosphere and scenic beauty attracted Lahore`s gentry to the course, while a thriving horse-breeding industry and diverse fan base kept them riveted. But after the sport was banned in 1977, the pomp and circumstance surrounding races faded away.

Racing revived within a year of the ban, but the Lahore Race Club no longer boasts an ambience that could encourage new race goers to participate in the competition between four-legged athletes. 

This was not the case in 1958, when I was a college student in Lahore. On a winter afternoon, I had the chance to visit the Lahore Race Club when a card of eight events was drawn for the Breeder`s Cup. Top-class colts and fillies jostled for supremacy, providing superb entertainment, the magic of which lured me to the sport. I soon become a casual visitor to the club and then a regular racing fan.

In those days, meetings were held every Sunday during the four-month-long season, unlike today, when a season boasts only 90 race days (featuring between six to eight races a day). These brought together horses from other racing centres, especially Karachi, under the Jockey Club of Pakistan Rules of Racing, an affiliate of the Jockey Club of England. Regular meetings determined the great colts, fillies, and equine super stars, and thus kept race goers connected with the sport. Interest levels were also high because of the tough competition the sport engendered as horses, trainers, and jockeys vied for supremacy. 

The sport was also cosmopolitan in its early history English jockeys would fly to Pakistan for short stints while about half-a-dozen English trainers resided here permanently.

Apart from racing, the weekly gathering at the club was a social treat. Women attired in party dresses and sporting stylish hairdos speckled the stands. They mingled with a variety of race fans, including top industrialists, bureaucrats, film directors and actors, lawyers, and other sportsmen. Name dropping was de rigueur, as wealthy families such as the Tiwanas, Noons, Legharis, Syeds, Haroons, Mirzas, and Shoaibs would frequent the races. Indeed, General Iskinder Mirza, who later became the president of Pakistan, had joined the ranks of horse owners and long patronised the sport.

The club`s frequent visitors kept alive the club`s original culture it was set up in 1924 under British rule as a private club dedicated to promoting horse racing and breeding. It continues to have 50 members from among whom a 10-steward panel is elected for a year`s term. 

Unfortunately, Lahore`s glitterati no longer appear at the club. Shah Mardan Shah Pir Pagara has won the grand Pakistan Derby four times, but he is one of few prominent personalities to stay invested in the club. For the most part, its past glory is the stuff of memories and nostalgia amongst those who continue to attend horse races. Although there are 500 racing horses in the city, hardly 1,200 people arrive at the tracks on racing days. They long to see a revival of horse racing, both as a sport and an excuse to socialise. But on this count, the pessimists outnumber the optimists.