In late 1998, Ontario’s racetracks went into partnership with government casinos, when the Slots At Racetracks Program began, and when you ask AI about it, it clearly states the purpose of the initiative:

The initiative was created to boost the horse racing industry and compensate it for the loss of wagering dollars to competing casinos.

Funny, eh? They say it was created to “boost the horse racing industry,” but instead, getting into bed with casino companies has, in many ways, been one of the things helping to destroy us.

To some degree at least, the writing was on the wall fairly early, to those of us that took notice. In TROT Magazine’s State Of The Industry Issue, in May, 2008, we had Dean Hoffman pen a feature entitled: Slots & Nots: Have We Made a Deal With the Devil?

Some agreed, some didn’t, but in the end it didn’t really matter. A deal was a deal.

Or was it?

As we all know, in 2012, the government ended our part of the deal, but somehow, we were left sharing our facilities with our former ‘partners’ anyway?

I always likened our receiving a small share of the slots revenue to this: If the owner of Wendy’s allowed the owner of McDonald’s to set up a booth selling Big Macs in their stores, they’d take a cut from every burger sold, for allowing their competition into the building - it’s just common sense. But if and when Wendy’s stopped receiving their cut, then - obviously - McDonalds would be asked to leave.

We lost our cut but our competition was allowed to stay. Why? Because the racetracks and municipalities didn’t lose theirs. Only the horsepeople did.

Hence, Kathleen Wynne took over, and, lucky for us, threw us a bone. We strictly became a subsidy, but we still had life. A life we were now stuck sharing with casino companies however, who for the most part, showed little interest in horse racing.

Casino companies would eventually become part of horse racing all over North America - not only in Ontario. At some tracks, and in some jurisdictions, it works well - in others, not so much.

In recent months, as two more Canadian tracks with decades of history behind them have been shuttered for good, it’s been more of the ‘not so much.’

On August 15, 2025, officials with Great Canadian Entertainment announced the immediate closure of British Columbia's only harness racing track, Fraser Downs.

On April 2, 2026, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino announced that Rideau Carleton Raceway will conclude its racing program starting with the 2026 season.

These aren’t the only Canadian tracks to have ever closed due to their relationships with companies that focus mainly on other gaming options either. In October 2009, Attractions Hippiques, which owned Quebec's four racetracks, declared bankruptcy, and closed all four tracks, after failing to generate expected revenue from their VLTs.

Not that many years ago, there were nine Standardbred tracks located in-between Mohawk and Canada’s Atlantic provinces - today there are only two: Kawartha Downs and Hippodrome 3R.

Maybe we don’t have the horse population to populate the number of tracks we had 30 years ago, but we do want to expand our business in terms of participation and exposure - and you cannot have expansion by contraction.

So what do we do?

Well the writing was already on the wall, somewhat, at the time of the aforementioned TROT feature in 2008, and the writing was definitely on the wall more recently, in BC and in our Nation’s Capital.

Last April, Jim Marino told me that they had all been ordered to vacate the Fraser Downs backstretch for an amount of time when the meet ended, so exterminators could remove a rat problem. He told me that they all knew they’d never be allowed back. He was right, and in August it became official.

On April 17, 2025 Hard Rock closed the Rideau backstretch for good. So it wasn’t really that big a surprise when just under a year later, the same company that closed Pompano Park forever, closed Rideau as well.

We all know that Great Canadian is soon to open a new gaming facility just a few kms down the road from Georgian Downs, and that the fan experience at both Georgian and Flamboro Downs has basically been left to flap in the wind for years.

The writing is on the wall my friends - again. And sitting around waiting to read more racetrack obituaries isn’t the answer.

It’s a proven fact that racetrack casinos do better when live racing is on - so long as a crowd is actually present. So wouldn’t the current casinos at Flamboro and Georgian both do better if the people running those tracks had some skin in the game, and worked hard to draw in fans, the way that tracks like Western Fair and Hanover do?

And if their casinos did better due to this, wouldn’t Great Canadian be more interested in seeing racing thrive at these tracks for years to come?

Why don’t we, the horsepeople, create a not-for-profit that could lease (for $1 per year perhaps) and run tracks like this?

If some of our ‘partners’ aren’t interested in bringing the racetrack experience back to life, and re-energizing our grandstands with people, why don’t we do it for them?

Under the current system, an Ontario racetrack gets approximately $28,000 per card to cover their operating costs. That means, with 114 cards in 2026, Flamboro will receive $3,192,000 in operating costs - I’m thinking that we could run it for that amount, and improve the racetrack experience there along the way.

Listen… our tracks are being picked-off one-by-one. THE WRITING IS ON THE WALL!

If a sniper was on a bridge, and was picking off pedestrians, one-by-one, with a high-powered rifle, would we just continue to go about our day? Or would we send someone in to stop the massacre?

Well, they’re picking off our racetracks one-by-one. I’m not 100% certain that my idea here is the answer, but I do know that we need to do something to stop the bleeding - before it’s too late.

Dan Fisher
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