Iconic Madras Race Club searches for successor of India’s oldest horse-racing club

CHENNAI: Younger scions of the Rajah of Chettinad family are either jockeying or considering going for the top post of the centuries-old Madras Race Club just eight months after tzar of racing MAM Ramaswamy left behind an unresolved tug-of-war over legacy assets and reins of India’s oldest horse-racing club.

Several names are cropping up as contenders, including Ramaswamy’s disowned foster son MAMR Muthiah and Chettinad heir Karti, son of former finance minister P Chidambaram. “After many unopposed elections during the Ramaswamy regime, the signs of a real contest can be seen,” Javeed Ghatala, a board member told ET.

After the passing of Ramaswamy during the December deluge last year, former Sheriff of Madras and Rajya Sabha member R Ramakrishnan had taken over.

Over the last eight months, a clean-up act has been initiated and the Udhagamandalam races were opened up to horses from across India in a clear bid to restore the club’s former glory. MAMR Muthiah is not content being the quiet businessperson.

Toward the end of his life, Ramaswamy bequeathed assets to two charitable trusts and assigned cousin AC Muthiah as the custodian. Running the Rs 4,000-crore Chettinad Group of companies feels good but Muthiah junior wants to hobnob with elite businesspersons and policymakers to be somewhat like his father – a good-natured, generous industrialist.

“All along I have toiled for the group, silently focussing on how to grow the business. Now, I realise the price of that is I have alienated myself from the society and the elite. That has costed me.. ” he told ET.

Muthiah has begun canvassing among the members (over 1,000 members) of the MRC and has even roped in a descendant of the Mysuru royal family to contest in the polls. But, Chidambaram, the likely contender at the opposite corner, is still deciding.

“Broadly, I have been approached on this, but I have not decided one way or the other,” he told ET. Although they look set to race, they maintain they have no personal animosity.

“Off the track, I am neutral about him,” said Muthiah, while Chidambaram went further to say: “I have cordial relations with him. This is not a personality battle.”

Each year, four members of the board retire. The Chettinad family descendants need to get elected into the 16-member Committee of Management, which will conduct a board-level poll for the next Chairman. Usually, the future chairman is elected after the Annual General Meeting held every September.

The hotting up contest coincides with a quiet revival afoot at the Madras Race Club. After a hiatus of 11years, the Invitation Cub returned to the Guindy race course, bringing horses from the Poonawalla Stud Farm of the billionaire vaccine-maker Cyrus Poonawalla and other such doyens.

The Classics race in December is expected to see diverse participation too, including, according to one board member, a horse from Vijay Mallya. On the financial side, the board instituted a complete audit of books to spot irregularities.

Current Chairman R Ramakrishnan said: “MAM Ramaswamy had done a lot of good things to bring up this club to great heights. But, towards his end, things had gone wrong with or without his knowledge. We are trying to set it right now. There was a closed-door policy: no horse other than his can race in Madras and Ooty. Now, anyone can race and nearly 4,000 people attending these events.”