IT'S MONDAY MORNING AT the Poonawalla Stud Farms’ young stock division in Pune. At the viewing gallery, a prospective buyer studies pedigrees as muscular, chestnut yearlings parade before him. His wife and little daughter are fascinated by a pair of Shetland ponies, barely three feet tall, brought in to entertain the child.
Poonawalla Stud Farms owns the most thoroughbreds in India; owner Zavaray S. Poonawalla says his “foal crop today is about 125 horses every year”. That’s almost 8% of the total bloodstock that India’s 85 stud farms produce annually. His bay gelding Mystical scripted two famous overseas wins in 2007. First, it was the Group One Property Weekly Cup at the Dubai International Racing Carnival, a tournament that sees top thoroughbreds in the world race. And less than a month later, Mystical enthralled the Dubai audience again, winning the Maserati Plate Race. The prize money for some three minutes of work during the two races: $175,000 (Rs 92.3 lakh) or as much as some executives earn in an entire year.
Horse racing in India has traditionally been frowned upon because of its association with gambling. (Today, it is the only legalised form of gambling permitted in India, with the collective annual turnover of the five leading turf clubs totalling about Rs 3,000 crore). However, the multi-million dollar Indian horse racing and breeding industry is steadily, albeit slowly, increasing India’s visibility on the world map as homegrown thoroughbreds win on foreign soil.
Turf legends such as Astonish, owned by the Poonawalla Stud Farms, set the pace in 1994 by winning at Sha Tin, Hong Kong. Simply Noble (bred by Poonawalla and owned first by Chennai’s M.A.M. Ramaswamy), Saddle Up (owned by UB Group chairman Vijay Mallya), and Polar Falcon (bred by S. Pathy) have achieved similar distinctions at Asian races while Adler became the first Indian horse to win in America, at Ellis Park, Kentucky. In the last 15 years, 54 Indian-born and bred thoroughbreds have raced internationally and either placed in or won races in Singapore, Korea, the U.S., Malaysia, and Dubai.
Before liberalisation, Indian breeders had to almost beg for licences, recalls Zeyn Mirza, managing director of Bangalore-based United Racing & Bloodstock Breeders, owned by Mallya. “Until liberalisation, licences were issued at Rs 2 lakh for importing broodmares, and Rs 5 lakh for stallions,” he says. “Today, [if] you want to import a million dollar stallion or mare for breeding, you can do it.”
F.F. Wadia, chairman of the National Horse Breeders Association of India, recollects how foal production dipped from 1,200 to about 300 between 1948 and 1953, because of the regulations created post-Independence. But despite the later clarity in policy, it never translated into support for the sport. “After Independence, not a single new racecourse has been built. There are plans for one in Punjab but it’s yet to materialise,” says Lynn Deas, publisher of Racing World India magazine and a horse owner.
SO IS IT A TROT or a gallop for the nearly 200-year-old industry? There’s been an almost 650% surge in imported bloodstock in recent years—from 28 in 1980, to 212 in 2010. Poonawalla adds it’s not just the opening up of quarantine restrictions and export regulations that gave Indian racehorses global visibility.
For one, the bloodstock has improved dramatically. Recently, Poonawalla Stud Farms imported the high-class Irish-bred stallion Ace, and Usha Stud Farm, India’s second-largest breeder, brought in Multidimensional, an English stallion. Both are bred from Danehill, one of the great stallions of modern racing. In 2010, almost 200 broodmares were imported into the country from France and Britain, says Vivek Jain, chairman of the Royal Western India Turf Club.
Then there’s the leap in modernised breeding management. Poonawalla keeps four Indian veterinarians at his farms but even 30 years ago there weren’t many vets who had exposure to breeding thoroughbreds. It was common to see mismanagement of the animals thanks to the shortage of professionals, which led to owners doubling as vets. Now vets are sent abroad to the best farms in the world for training.
Top breeders also have to work at breeding horses with stronger legs, since turf conditions here are hard, with no rain for nine months in a year, unlike England or Ireland. Little surprise, then, that the quality of foal crop in India has gone up over the past 15 years, as has the evolution of breeders, adds Mirza.
In terms of breeding science, all breeders cull out the best possible genetics in their own way. Mirza for example, likes to inbreed horses back to the matriarch in a bloodline so that the likelihood of certain attributes, like “staying the distance”, are stronger in the offspring. Others mate champion sires with a large number of mares and hope for the most winners. Poonawalla prefers to breed the strongest horses by trying to secure the best stallions and mares. “It’s an exacting art,” he says.
Ameeta Mehra, managing director of Usha Stud Farm, says even small operators are now aware of how to procure top-notch horses for breeding. “I got a call recently from Badal Stud Farm in Punjab asking about a world-class sprinter they had bought in France,” she says. “This was a surprise from a farm that has some 20 odd horses.”
Indian-bred thoroughbreds today are far more expensive than 20 years ago. Deas says they can, depending on the pedigree, easily cost over Rs 50 lakh, with some prize specimens hitting the Rs 1 crore mark. Maintenance and upkeep can be as high as Rs 30,000 monthly, she adds, in addition to studbook registration charges and fees to run in races.
Imported feedstock that includes Australian oats, muesli, and other nutrition are critical to an animal’s performance. “Imported nutrition is like high octane petrol,” Mirza says, for the living machines that can hit 60 kmph at top speed. He adds that the key is getting nutritionists to scientifically administer feed because while managing several dozen horses, it is a challenge even for the trained eye to tell if a colt is growing too slowly or not putting on enough muscle—factors that can impede performance.
What the breeders have little or no control over is the dwindling number of owners. “The older ones are getting older and the younger ones are getting fewer,” laments Poonawalla. The largest owners in racing today are Ramaswamy with more than 300 horses; Rakesh Wadhawan of HDIL with 200; real-estate developer Harish Mehta and Mallya with 100 each. There’s also Kolkata’s Deepak Khaitan and Shapoor Mistry of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group. These businessmen know best what high stakes are all about, and more are expected to catch up. It may happen in the next three or four years when Poonawalla hopes to stage an international race in Mumbai