Horse events and sports were initially organised for the British cavalry at Akra before they were moved to the Maidan.

During its heyday, RCTC-organised races were among the most important social events of the bigwigs' calendar and were opened by the Viceroy of India.

The club also held polo matches during the late 19th century, and hosted English-style gambling; the Calcutta Derby Sweeps, organised by the RCTC, was the world's largest sweepstake in the 1930s.

[1] Organised horse races were first held in India on 16 January 1769 at Akra (near Calcutta), where they continued for the next 40 years.

The club laid out a new course in the southwest part of the Maidan in 1812, at approximately present racecourse location.

The Calcutta Derby Stakes, in which maiden Arabians ran 2.5-mile (4.0 km) for valuable prizes, began in 1842.

[4] The Calcutta Turf Club was founded on 20 February 1847 to regulate all aspects of horse racing in the city.

[9] In 1883 the British House of Lords discussed an accusation against a Surgeon-Major Thornburn by the Lucknow Race Course of gambling irregularities which was upheld by the Calcutta Turf Club.

[10] The Calcutta Turf Club was the governing body by 1899 of all of British India and Burma's 52 racecourses except for Bombay (now Mumbai), Poona (now Pune), Karachi and Khelapur (now Kolhapur), which were under the jurisdiction of Bombay's Western India Turf Club.

The first Grand National in India was run in 1895 at the course at Tollygunge, and steeplechasing was one of the racing season's main events.

[16] At the opening of the Christmas race week (an important social event), the viceroy of India and his wife would drive in state past the grandstand.

The Maharaja of Burdwan, Bijay Chand Mahtab, was the first Indian to be elected a full member of the club in 1908.

Expanding the Tollygunge course was an obvious choice, but the price of adjacent land increased steeply when the plan became known.

[4] During the early 1950s, the South India Turf Club (SITC) split off from the RCTC to oversee racing in Bangalore, Madras (Chennai), Hyderabad, Mysore and Ooty.

[1] In February 1961, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visited the course and presented the winning trophy.

[4] The Calcutta Turf Club Derby draw was started as a private sweepstake in 1887 by Lord William Beresford.

[31] Shortly after World War I, the sweepstakes awarded prizes of £75,000, £35,000 and £15,000 for the top three horses in the club's Derby.

[27] The club was housed in the former home of the Apcar family: a two-story, well-maintained Palladian building dating to the early 19th century.

The two-story vestibule has a carved wooden staircase leading to the upper floor, where the family had their private rooms.

[12] In March 2017, environmental activist Subhas Datta submitted an application to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) concerning untreated manure released from the club's stables.

The application also noted that liquid waste was stressing Kolkata's sewer system and flowing into Adi Ganga, polluting the Hooghly River.

To minimise pollution and health risks to the people living around the racecourse, the stables in Hastings and the veterinary hospital, the tribunal (following reports by KMC and the West Bengal Pollution Control Board[42] ) directed the club to develop a solid-waste management plan and install a sewage treatment plant in three months; failure to do so would cost the club ₹50,000 (equivalent to ₹70,000 or US$810 in 2023) per day.

[42] A month later, the Supreme Court allowed the RCTC to return to the NGT to review the forfeited bond.