The Central Ontario Standardbred Association (COSA) issued a release Friday, Nov. 9 on the Standardbred stakeholder meetings held earlier this week regarding the OMAFRA Panel Report.

The contents of the release appear below.

A group of Standardbred stakeholders met for discussion on Tuesday and Thursday of this week. The group was comprised of members from COSA, NCRHHA, NHA, OHHA, SBOA and Standardbred Canada.

Discussion centered on the OMAFRA report, how it impacts the Standardbred racing industry as well as possible options for addressing the concerns this industry has with the OMAFRA Panel’s recommendations.

The discussion concluded that a task force is to be formed to focus attention on the issues that have been identified in the final OMAFRA report.

It is important that COSA, the NCRHHA, NHA and SBOA work with our Standardbred Task Force to bring these issues forward through OHRIA with a unified voice. In doing so, we need to reach out to members in public office as well as industry experts to strengthen our position to Government and to the OMAFRA Panel.

We can only succeed in changing the future of the Standardbred racing industry if we make a concerted effort to understand what is best for the industry as a whole, and work smartly with partners from all sectors of the racing industry to adopt clear solutions and a common approach to implementing them.

Our efforts going forward will be focused on supporting this Standardbred Task Force and OHRIA promoting the principle of cross-industry collaboration as a means to achieving success for the Standardbred racing community and the industry as a whole. This includes working with OHRIA to determine how we best position and negotiate the desired outcomes for the Standardbred Industry.

OHRIA is composed of the following Standardbred associations: COSA, NCRHHA, NHA, SBOA, Standardbred Canada and for-profit as well as not for profit race tracks across Ontario.

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