RWITC juggernaut of high profile action continues unabated - By Vivek Jain I TOI
Posted on - 15 Feb 2013
RWITC juggernaut of high profile action continues unabated
By Vivek Jain
TOI
FABULOUS February is turning into a fantabulous month for racing in Mumbai. The RWITC juggernaut of a feast of high profile days continues unabated, as after two big weekends, comes a third in succession -- the AGP Multi Million day -- being promoted as a day of sheer equine luxury!
With a prize money of over 2 million, the feature is one of the top juvenile races at Mumbai with a plethora of riches for this set all through the season. But what promises to set the day apart is its huge emphasis on lifestyle, now increasingly part of the menu at Mahalaxmi on Sundays. It has been proved that the casual visitor has to be enticed to make the day experiential, and going beyond just racing. IPL has changed the way cricket is viewed, and the RWITC has already set the trend, and with great success to promote its big days as carnivals of leisure and entertainment.
Sunday’s repertoire has live fashion from Kimaya, the innovative tea tasting, casino, art, an on site spa, music and food all through the afternoon, topped off by a sundowner! Surely the champagne has been uncorked even before the races are run! To keep all in good spirit, there will be a veritable array of prizes from tickets to Turkey, stay in premium hotels, designer gifts and more! If the weather were kinder, the day would surely have been a still bigger hot ticket item.
In yet another innovation, the public enclosure turns into a carnival mela, with handicrafts, pottery, puppets and food and rightly the focus goes beyond the members’ enclosure, where the arc lights are usually trained at. And hence the packaging of tradition with the glamorous, Page 3with culture, all on one afternoon, has never before tried on this scale, and is yet another tribute to the Club’s efforts in constantly raising the bar in the promotion of the sport.
To lend a corporate touch to the day the association of the Young Presidents’ Organisation (YPO) and the Entrepreneur’s Organisation (EO), with sponsored races and their exclusive membership in attendance is the target audience the sport desperately seeks. Racing suffers from a stigma of being elitist and gambling oriented, and it is just perfect that the young corporate honchos are exposed to see racing at the RWITC, breaking those myths on a day that offers something for everybody and in unmatched ambience.
