Mauritius Election Holds The Key To Racing’s Future Direction
The PTP’s final race meeting at Champ de Mars opens the possibility of the Mauritius Turf Club’s return to its home, but nothing is straightforward in the Mauritian racing drama.
HORSE RACING in Mauritius saw the end of a brief and troublesome tenure in its long history on October 6, when the famous old Champ de Mars racecourse staged the final race meeting under the management of the People’s Turf PLC (PTP). What happens next in the sport’s ongoing ‘soap opera’ on the Indian Ocean island could well depend on which way the political winds blow at the National Assembly elections scheduled for November 10.
Unlike Macau, which saw Taipa racecourse close its doors for good in April, and Singapore, which raced for a final time the day before the PTP bowed out of running race meetings in Port Louis, Mauritius racing has not met its end.
PTP has a new complex, a sand track at Petit Gamin where the PTP could stage racing if it receives the required licences, and if the sidelined Mauritius Turf Club (MTC) can regain political favour, the club’s aim is that Champ de Mars will see racing happen again under its management in 2025.
But the sport is in a difficult position in Mauritius and the PTP’s attempt at an international jockeys’ competition as its parting fixture did little to mask the slide it has suffered on its watch. Mauritius is famed for its jockeys’ challenge, which has attracted star names down the years like Frankie Dettori and Christophe Soumillon, but this time the competition featured lower-rank jockeys: Benny Woodworth won the title and Malaysia took the team event.
One former racing professional, who spoke to Idol Horse this past summer but who did not want to be identified, said the PTP had “made a mess of racing” and that the Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth had at last understood that the horse racing situation “could cost him the election.” That participant, and others Idol Horse spoke to, expected the Mauritius Turf Club would return, but that it would be a difficult comeback and would take some time to get racing back into good shape.
“We used to be respected,” the source added. “We used to have the best jockeys in the world coming in at the end of the season and this was the most popular game in Mauritius. Tourists used to come to the races but not now. Few people are going now: it’s a farce.”
With conflict and suspect political manoeuvring having already damaged the sport and its infrastructure, horse racing might not be the mass pastime it once was on the island – population 1.2 million – but it still has a level of popularity high enough to be used as a political football going into the nation’s election.
“It is said Mauritians have three pastimes: first is politics locally; second is the English Premier League; and the third is horse racing in Mauritius,” Gavin Glover, chairman of the Mauritius Turf Club (MTC), told Idol Horse.
Glover’s day job includes being lawyer to the opposition Labour party leader Navin Ramgoolam, and the broader support within the MTC membership seems to be with the opposition coalition since the emergence of PTP.
“We used to be respected… Few people are going now: it’s a farce.”
The MTC is waiting in the wings for its chance to return and has been for the past two years. It is the body that organised racing at Champ de Mars from 1812 through 2022, operating via a lease on the government-owned tracks, while owning the adjacent grandstands itself.
On September 27 the MTC submitted to the Cote d’Or International Racecourse and Entertainment Complex Ltd (COIREC) a request for an exclusive five-year lease on the racecourse, which would not only ensure it is back in the game, but also might safeguard racing’s immediate and even long-term future.
That seemed like being a straightforward bit of processing for COIREC, until a late ‘letter of intent’ was received from a third entity, also stating its aims to stage racing at Champ de Mars in 2025. The identity of the individual or individuals behind that submission have not been made public, but local reports in Le Mauricien, citing unnamed sources, and L’Express suggest it could involve Jean Michel Lee Shim, the man behind PTP.
MTC has been at war with PTP since the latter held its first race meeting at Champ de Mars in June 2022. The two entities shared the track throughout that year: a discordant one week on, one week off, 20 fixtures each, until the financially damaged MTC said ‘enough’ and withdrew at the end of that year, leaving the PTP to have a solo run through 2023 and 2024.
That is seen to have given Lee Shim what sources said is an unhealthy control of racing: Lee Shim and PTP buy and import horses, they said, then lease them to ‘owners.’ The fact that he is the island’s biggest gambling operator has given rise to concerns about integrity.
It has been a time of increasing turmoil as the PTP has faced criticisms over the upkeep of Champ de Mars and particularly the racing surface; trainers and owners have pulled out and closed stables, including the famous and popular Soun Gujadhur operation, also Patrick Merven and Rameshwar Gujadhur; there have been a number of suspensions for doping; high-profile race falls; immigrant worker irregularities at Petit Gamin; the horse population has decreased, in turn reducing the quality of horses racing on the track; and then there have been ongoing suggestions of corruption, a whispered sound so common in Mauritius, that have affected punter confidence; turnover has declined.
Hong Kong-based Karis Teetan, Mauritius racing’s most successful export, recalled a different time, during his childhood at Champ du Mars when racing was booming under the MTC.
“It was the only sport that was massive in Mauritius,” he told Idol Horse. “Everyone would go to the races as a family on a weekend, or they’d stay at home every Saturday, families would get together to watch the racing on the TV and it would be on all day.
“In the last few years, it has slowed down and there’s not the same support in the public. But when I was young, it was crazy, it was packed with people and different groups would have the stable they supported, like the Gujadhurs, with the flags with the name on, it was really massive.”
Political machinations were allowed greater motion when the current government gained power, firstly a foothold as part of the elected L’Alliance Lepep coalition in 2014, and then ramped up after the 2019 election win. The Covid-19 pandemic, which ravaged the MTC’s profits, then exacerbated a situation that led to the newly-formed PTP being licensed to operate alongside the financially and politically weakened MTC.
Lee Shim, one of PTP’s major shareholders, is a businessman and former MTC member, who according to sources in Mauritius “controls the gambling,” and “controls all the casinos in Mauritius, and the only SMS fixed odds betting operator is him.” Those sources estimated Lee Shim, who owns the betting conglomerate SMS Pariaz, “controls indirectly about 50% of the bookmaking activity,” and, not only that, he is a significant donor to the governing political party, the centre-left Militant Socialist Movement (MSM) and Prime Minister Jugnauth.
A 2021 report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, which cited Lee Shim as a party donor, stated: “The ruling MSM party reportedly received substantial contributions from backers in the gambling sector, an industry widely suspected of being used to launder proceeds from the (illegal) drugs market.”
The rise and fall of the PTP, and the fall and potential return of the MTC, is a long tale, going back to 2007 and the establishment of the Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA), which, over time, has been used as a mechanism to expand governmental control over not only gambling regulation, but also the wider industry.
A March 2015 government-commissioned report by Richard Parry, Paul Scotney and Ben Gunn, known as The Parry Report, recommended the establishment of an independent regulatory authority for horse racing, and that the MTC should retain responsibility for race day planning and operations. But that was rejected in favour of the formation of the Horse Racing Division (HRD) as a department of the GRA: critics said this has indeed enabled greater government control and have alleged damaging interference in racing regulations by government ministers and GRA board members to serve their own interests, and to hamper the MTC.
The MTC, in seeking to return to its role organising racing at Champ de Mars under the current regulatory mechanism, has been in discussions with the Prime Minister’s office this past year, but agreement has not been reached. If it is to organise racing next year, the demand for exclusivity at Champ de Mars seems to be an immovable condition: it knows it cannot afford to again go through the financial damage caused by sharing fixtures.
Given Lee Shim’s massive business interests in the gambling sector, it would make sense that it is in his best interests for racing to not only continue but thrive in Mauritius, but his political interests and his personal conflict with the MTC complicates that line of reasoning. Further intrigue was added at the weekend’s race meeting when Wayne Wood, the former head of the HRD, was spotted: Le Mauricien alluded to the strange coincidence of the timing of Wood’s return to Mauritius and the mysterious third entity’s expression of intent to race at Champ de Mars. Of course, it might indeed just be coincidence.
The MTC for its part ceases to be if it cannot get back in the game. But, even if it does, with Champ de Mars reportedly in poor condition, the horse population in decline and public confidence and interest having taken a hit, it will be a tough road back.
Mauritius racing is alive but it is not well. Whatever happens through the upcoming election will undoubtedly have consequences for the sport and which entity will come out the other side with a licence to get racing on the island back on track.
Whether it will be the historic MTC with its 212 years of history or not is still hanging in the balance of which way the political power might shift ∎