Providing video coverage at Indian racecourses

Robert Tyabj, Bombay, 1969

When I was with Western Outdoor Advertising in Bombay back in the late sixties, one of our most ambitious projects I was entrusted with was to design, build, install and operate large-scale video systems at India's major race courses - Bombay, Poona, Calcutta, Madras, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ootacamund (Ooty). Closed-circuit television (CCTV) was a new technology, everything was still in black and white and TV broadcasts were little more than radio programmes with pictures.

The project involved setting up half a dozen broadcast quality video cameras on 20-foot high steel towers sited strategically around the course. The cameras fed dozens of TV screens via the intermediate electronics and miles of cable. I trained a team of technicians to accurately and smoothly operate the cameras to follow each race, paying special attention to the home run as the video recordings were often studied by the judges to add context to the results of the photofinish cameras.

In the racing season, the team moved from course to course with the equipment. Initially, we used huge Ampex cameras and reel-to-reel video recorders (photos) but were able in time to replace these with lighter hardware as newer models were introduced by other manufacturers like Philips.