Calcutta: Punters’ skill contest will be an additional attraction on Sunday, the Derby Day, RCTC chairman Cyrus Madan said on Friday at a pre-Derby news conference. “Prizes like colour television, refrigerator and micro wave owen will be linked with the jackpot pool of the day. Tickets alive after the fourth leg will be drawn at random by the club’s independent betting computer system,” he added. A brought-forward jackpot amount of over Rs 3.3 lakh will be added to the day’s pool which is expected to cross the seven-figure digit. “I am expecting a big crowd,” hoped Madan, sounding less worried about the political rally on the same day.

Spade work done in the recent past is paying dividends now, according to Madan, who assumed the chairmanship of the club about 10 months ago. “We have already about 400 horses in the Hastings stables and there are another 100 more in the pipeline. “The city turfites will be seeing a lot of new trainers in the coming weeks. Significant among them are the deputies of the Western India-based Narendra Lagad and Magansingh P. Jodha,” said Madan. Trainer Arti Doctor has almost decided to make the RCTC as her headquarter. She will be training about 20 horses brought from the RWITC. Her fellow Mumbai-trainer Imtiaz Sait is in the process of strengthening his string from eight to 20 as soon as 40-odd stables are ready in the raceground.

The club has also decided to issue a training licence to Rutherford Alford, an ex-jockey who has been wheel-chaired since his fall from a racehorse about 17 months ago in Bangalore. “We are the first one in the country to issue a licence to a physically handicapped professional. We may be starting a trend here which is widely followed in Europe and US,” added Madan.