The cancellation of the first day of racing, scheduled on Saturday April 23, was announced by MTC Sports And Leisure Ltd (MTCSL) on Friday. The subsidiary company of the Mauritius Turf Club (MTC) refuses to pay for its license to operate the races after finding unacceptable two of the conditions imposed by the Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA).
Many racegoers were disappointed to learn, during a press conference held on Friday 21 at the Champ-de-Mars, that the MTCSL, not agreeing with two conditions attached to their license of ‘Horse Racing Organiser’ (HRO) would not go ahead with the organization of the first day.
The conditions attached to the license of HRO was communicated by the GRA and reached them during the press conference.
The speakers withdrew to study the conditions, and a few minutes later Jean Michel Giraud announced that the MTC and the MTCSL did not agree on conditions 4 and 10 saying that there the first meeting was cancelled.
The first condition was that the race card must now, according to the conditions of the GRA, be published by the HRD. And, that the MTC and the MTCSL must provide all the equipment and logistics to the HRD on the day of the races for free. These two points are already the subject of actions entered into court by the MTCSL.
The GRA Act which states under section 15 C ‘Functions of Horse Racing Committee: (f) be responsible for horse race planning, including the preparation and publication of the horse race calendar, fixtures lists, nominations and racecards’. And section 31.117: ‘Duties and shareholding of horse racing organiser; (n) provide proper infrastructure, including interview rooms, facilities for viewing of race videos from different angles and any other ancillary infrastructure to assist the stipendiary stewards in their duties’.
The amendments to the GRA Act were signed into law on January 21, 2022 and the MTCSL filed a lawsuit on Tuesday April 19 arguing that the part regarding the race schedule was unconstitutional.
Regarding the use of equipment and facilities the MTC and MTCSL are of the view that they will need to receive payment for wear and tear and for probable damage to equipment. They ask for a ‘Retainer fee’ which remains to be defined by an evaluator.
The trainers met on Friday 22 and the members of the Trainers Association decided that enough was enough and to save enormous costs in training, checking and feeding horses etc., to gradually slow down and adopt an off-season approach. The Association has already officially informed the MTCSL, HRD and GRA.
The MTCSL management said it would request a meeting with the office of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance “to settle this unfortunate situation”.
