Public Input Sought On Applications To Vary 2013 Race Dates

It would be easy to reiterate the other earlier postings,however as an owner of standardbred horses I am a member of the horseracing industry first and foremost. In my world this includes every racehorse breed in Ontario, all those involved in other vocations to do with horses i.e. feed mills, hay, farriers , veterinarians and yes the race tracks where we race these 4 legged athletes. To cut racing opportunities to this degree is going to put a lot of our people out of work which I am sure is not the intent? I implore the racetrack operators to revisit these dates and do what they can to increase the race dates so most of us can survive in the short term and hopefully the long? It was not my intent to ignore the breeders as they have already paid a terrible price at the sales! Please let*s work together for the welfare of all, if not most of us!

Karry Howard has hit the nail on the head, the tracks are doing exactly what the OMAFRA panel has suggested they do, reduce race dates.

I view their submission as very insightful, the got together and figured it out and told the horseman what they were doing. What is clear many of the tracks don't have enough purse money to get them through the Q1 race dates as given by the ORC. Flamboro racing 65 times in Q1 during the slowest patron time of year, makes no sense. According to their books, the horseman get 1 million a month for purses plus any pari-mutuel, that comes to 12 million, while they are racing for 75K/day x 65 dates = 4.9 million. Have a 2 million purse shortfall in Q 1.
They race 188 times with no chance of having a few months to stock purses like the summer tracks do (Grand River for example). What about the tracks are closed, they are reaping all of the slot money and putting it their pocket with no racing costs..???

What is more alarming, is that they should start the slow wind down now, not April 1 st and start to get the supply and demand to a managable level. Their is simply too much racing, too many horses for the Signature tracks with little concern from the general customer.

What is crystal clear, I still don't see how the tracks will give up their OLG lease money for the gaming space and willingfully hand it over to fund racing and hope that some of itor all is compensated by the Transition fund.

Who is funding the purses on April 1 ? The pari-mutuel ?...there isn't one !

Great Canadian has I think 200 million invested in their properties, under this scheme, are they not entittled to make a profit ? I trust we will see these properties wind down or close come April. No one is in the business to lose money..no one.

Not good folks, I see this whole thing collapsing and the ORC has done nothing to regulate or step in to slow the demise.

Michel Strasbourg SAID...

"If you reduce the number of days by 50% you take the owners out of the game. The only owners you will have are the trainer/owner (which i believe represent already a high percentage in B Tracks). Forget about the new blood or new money. What owner can afford to have his horse run twice a month. Remember that owners bring fans, friends, partnership, younger crowds...more people in the game.

If you reduce the number of days by 50% the B track owners, in one year, will be 80-90% trainer/owner and by the same token lose fans. This is a more complex decision then just saving money with the number of days. It should be status quo until a new government is voted".

With the greatest of respect to those commenting, I believe that one must first identify what the governments initial motivation is premised on.

Michel is bang on right, that appears to be the exit strategy; it's based on net proceeds. All monies that an owner gives to a Trainer to distribute to all parties; be it the cost of the actual horse and the initial cost to get him trained, grooms, training facilities, hay supplier, feed supplier, the trainer himself etc. Those parties are required to report the funds afforded them as income for tax purposes - however the owner is now able to write off the exact same amount resulting theoretically in not only zero proceeds to the government, the government is shelling out monies to prop up the purse structure. This results in the government funding an industry in which they will experience losses each year federally, which trickles down to the Provincial Government through a reduction of transfer payments.

However there is a remedy to the recent Supreme Court ruling; (which the complaintant recently annnouced publicly will cost the government approximately one billion dollars in retroactive refunds to owners), a remedy that will enhance the governments net proceeds.
By applying the monthly payments made by the owner (to the Trainer) as an ongoing capital addition to the base cost of the horse, (rather than allowing us to write off dollar for dollar investment each year), the remedy should be to amortize the horses cost over 14 years or thereabouts, that being the potential commercial life of the primary asset - the horse.

The government must heed their experiences with the absence or marginal increase in slot revenue at casino's in Windsor, Sarnia and Niagara Falls subsequent to the closure of slots at those racetracks. With the greatest respect to the Finance Minister, he has not factored that those using the slots at the racetracks are more frequently than not associated in some fashion with those involved in horse racing. They are not casino styled gamblers.

In my experience with government and the political language being relied upon, Michel is bang on right - no owner could financially justify racing twice a month, that is the exit stragy - the sad truth is there is a remedy that will allow for ongoing properity to the government.

The secondary motive is to be seen as being supportive of the horses; it is a political nightmare to be seen as the ultimate cause of the slaughter of approximately 10,000 horses; in my opinion it will result in the loss of approximately 9 seats in the legislature.

Mr. Hudak's position, although brilliant and well intended, is premised on it being "just one option". I noted that this site has removed a posting by a party who suggested that the racetracks would not possess the financial ability to bargain effectively for control of the Slots. That is untrue, a financier would take into consideration the revenue at each track when determining whether funding is appropriate. In my opinion the revenue would enable loan repayments.
However if this is the option chosen by Mr. Hudak, by the time that his and
Mr. MacDonald's white paper is executed might very well be a few years from now.

I apologize for the length of my views. As Michel said; this is so complex. I don't believe that the general public will accept the Americanization of our society with an additional 29 casino's ... there are more innovative methods to earning a buck other than through casino's, they are indeed nefarious! It is the beginning of a 'Pottersville'.

they shhould open mohawk at the same time as woodbine for cheaper horses on the big track u would bring betting up and everybody would get to race. They did it in montreal when trois rivieres was getting rebuilt and it brought a new life to cheap horses the public loved it

I was very surprise to see those dates.

1- Georgian Downs : No dates???? They are the only 5/8 B track in Southern Ontario and they don't want dates, well no dates no slots. They should get 4 days a week, if not no slots. It's not about them but the Industry.

2- Rideau Carleton wants the racing on Fridays to continue for January and February and the first week of March. They have handle of $40, on Fridays, are they kidding me. The Friday's races should be cancelled now!!!! And keep the number of races to 12.....why 15?????

3- Woodbine OK

4- WF OK

5- Flamboro from 5 to 4 would be enough

They have to work this hand in hand with the purses to be able to have those race days.

Purses: Something like,

1- Below $8K untouched
2- Purses from 10K to 12K reduced by 5%
3- Purses from 12 to 15K reduced by 10%
4- Purses from 16 to 20 reduced by 15%
5- No purses over 30K for open at woodbine.

If you reduce the number of days by 50% you take the owners out of the game. The only owners you will have are the trainer/owner (which i believe represent already a high percentage in B Tracks). Forget about the new blood or new money.
What owner can afford to have his horse run twice a month. Remember that owner bring fans, friends, partnership, younger crowds...more people in the game.

If you reduce the number of days by 50% the B track owners, in one year, will be 80-90% trainer/owner and by the same token loose fans. This is a more complex decision then just saving money with the number of days. It should be status quo until a new government is voted.

if Georgian drop all days in 2013 first qtr should be fit to close the slots as well during that same time. GCGC is more concerned on the gambling side of it so no racing no slots!!!

These requests are not unreasonable, given insecure and tenuous state of the industry. Would it not be wise in these uncertain times to stagger dates/post times of Canadian and Ontario tracks in particular, to ensure that there is one betting option available at all times or as many as possible during each day of the week. That is, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm (or approximate), Monday thru SUnday. The Western Fair Monday and Tuesday success could be extended to other tracks and would blend nicely into the WEG schedule.

Having read each of the Applications For Variance, it's apparent that the tracks are simply responding to the OMAFRA Report. WEG is reducing race dates 25%, purses for claiming races 12% and purses for condition races by 23%. (Wonder if trainers will reduce their fees accordingly?) The four Signature tracks got together and collectively reduced race dates 25%. Since the OMAFRA Report suggested only 300 Signature race dates for the year, the tracks presently racing do not want to use greater than 50% of them in the first quarter. Clearly the tracks are not the enemy here.

Welcome to the new reality! As Sheldon pointed out, there are already nearly double the horses in most entry boxes. Hopefully the next election will be soon and we can do to the Liberal Party what they have done to our business.

Western Fair is doing great on Mon/Tue cards.They have been getting over 300 thousand a card on these days.Why would they give up a lucrative day like Wednesday for a Friday night!!If they are lucky they get 100 thousand handle on Fridays.

At the present time there are approximately double the number of entries for racing opportunities at Flamboro. How do you expect support for the industry if we can only race a horse once every three weeks? By allowing Woodbine to race "cheaper" claiming horses, there would be enough support for them to race six days a week. This would also give the horsemen a chance to race at the "big track" and at the same time relieve some of the overcrowding at Flamboro.