The Standardbred Canada National Rulebook committee conducted its first meeting on September 29, 2017 where the committee agreed to begin work on creating a national rule book for Standardbred horse racing.
The committee co-chaired by Hambletonian President and CEO, John Campbell, and Standardbred Canada President and CEO, Dan Gall, detailed to committee members the primary objective and goals of the committee.
The committee agreed to begin the work by having each racing jurisdiction submit rules as it pertains to requested articles under review, and Standardbred Canada (SC) would then collate all rules and provide proposed language to begin consensus building for consistent and acceptable language for all racing jurisdictions.
At this time, Standardbred Canada would like to announce two additional members to the National Rulebook Committee. They include trainer Francis Richard of Quebec, and Monique Nadeau, a lawyer from the RACJ in Quebec. Mr. Richard has agreed to participate on the committee in a non-voting capacity while Ms. Nadeau will serve on the committee with Marco Bergeron of the RACJ.
Other committee members include regulators from all provincial jurisdictions including Mike Brown (BC), Doug Fenske (Alta.), Doug Schneider (Sask.), Larry Huber (Man.), Brent Stone (Ont.), Dr. Paul Hogan (Atlantic region), retired Hall of Fame driver and SC director Bill O’Donnell, Bill McLinchey (Mohawk Racetrack and SC director), judge Roger DesRoches (PEI), and driver Gerry Hudon (Alta.).
Communications manager Darryl Kaplan will serve as the Standardbred Canada representative to assist in coordination and execution of the committee agendas. In addition, there are two non-voting members; Mr. Richard and Dean Towers, representing horse players.
The committee’s next meeting is scheduled in the near future with further updates available at that time.