The historic Jorhat Gymkhana Club turned into a hub of activities last week when the oldest sporting event of the region, the Jorhat Races, took off with pomp and gaiety.
It is an annual event, which had started way back on January 16, 1877 under the first honorary secretary of the club, C.I. Showers. The club has been the venue for the event ever since.
“The idea behind the races was to display planters’ equestrian skills in a carnival-like atmosphere where all levels of workers involved in the plantations could be thoroughly entertained,” an organiser of the races told The Telegraph.
In the mid-nineties, planters stopped using pedigree horses used for their kamjari (work) and the very existence of the races came under threat. However, the horsemen from the Mising community thriving along the Brahmaputra bank started taking part in the races with local ponies. And thus the races continued.
The unique character of the races is the fact that these ponies are ridden bareback, without saddles and stirrups.
The 135th edition of the Jorhat Races was held from February 19 to 22 with race days on Friday and Sunday from noon to 4.30pm. The winners of all the races went home richer by 100-200 grams of silver and cash prizes.
An 80km car rally winding around tea gardens and dirt roads was held on the occasion where the planters and the members of the club participated.
A dog show was organised by the Assam Rifles Dog Training Centre for the entertainment of the visitors, who came in thousands. Organisers say that over 10,000 visitors attended the races this year.
A tennis tournament was also held on the grass courts of the club.
A horse named Ramprashad won the mile-long final race for the prestigious Governors’ Cup. The jockey, Taluk Doley, hails from Kolbari village on the bank of the Brahmaputra here.
“I am very happy to have won the prestigious Governor's Cup. The win has made me, my family and the village famous,” he told The Telegraph.
Maj. Gen. Vinod Kumar, GOC, 41 Sub Area and Anand Watts, superintendent of Hunwal tea
estate, gave away the prizes.
The car rally organised on the occasion had two joint winners — Amitabh Hazarika and Biswajit Sharma and Amitabh Barua and Samir Phukon.
The race week evenings were made lively by Soul, Sumon Kalyan Dutta & DJ Varun.
A fashion show was organised by Showtime, where beautiful models walked the ramp,
wearing outfits inspired by the races and cocktail evenings.
Chow Poran Gogoi, Anne Gogoi, Payal Oshon Goswami and Chin Moyee were the designers
featured.
Riders of the Mist, an hourlong documentary about the heritage Jorhat Races by Roopa Barooah was also screened on one of the evenings.
The Jorhat Gymkhana Club, the venue of the event, which was constructed in 1876, is itself replete with history and is a living testimony to the lavish lifestyle of tea planters during the British era.
A two-storied building, which is part of the club, was built 10 years later and it was the first double-storied building in undivided Sivasagar district in Upper Assam.
The Gymkhana golf course is the world’s third oldest after St Andrews in Scotland and the Royal Calcutta Golf Club.
The first aeroplane ever to land in the Northeast did so at the Gymkhana grounds in 1928, when Bernard Leete, the owner-pilot of the plane, came to Jorhat on the request of A.C. Tunstel, then director of the Tocklai Tea Research
Institute.
Official sources said Tunstel’s wife was not well and the aeroplane had come to ferry her to Calcutta for better treatment.
The Gymkhana club is just adjacent to Tocklai, the oldest tea research station in the world.
It was also at the club grounds that the first jeep was displayed after being brought to Assam in 1845.
