Even though the slots-at-racetracks program is still a few months from coming to an end, tons of Ontario breeders, horsepeople and related businesses have already been decimated --- just ask Dwayne and Kevin Job of System Fencing Ltd.
A report by Beverley Smith in The Globe and Mail explains that 40 per cent of System Fencing's sales are related to the Ontario standardbred racing sector.
Even though the company's sales are down 15 per cent over the past couple of months, the brothers are expecting that they have not seen the worst of the situation just yet, and the uncertainty about Ontario's racing future is just making the situation even worse.
“It’s tougher and tougher right now. There’s not a lot of margin,” the article quotes Dwayne as saying. “Do you start scaling down now? Or do you keep the status quo?
“We’d lose some good people if we had to lay some off. Do we keep all of the people and hope that we can keep building the industry going forward?”
(With files from The Globe and Mail)