The Bill Galvin Racing Alliance (BGRA) was launched in April this year with a mission to “work together to create and encourage partnerships and programs that will promote and grow harness racing by engaging the general public with the racing community.”
“We are very happy with what we accomplished this year,” said Karen Hauver, director of the BGRA.
Since April, the BGRA has been involved in outreach, contests and events to support this mission.
Some of the highlights of the past eight months include:
- Four contests (Youth Literary, Art, Photo and Video Derby) were coordinated by the BGRA.
- om Rankin hosted a very successful Open House event at his St. Catharines, Ont. breeding farm with over 300 guests stopping by to meet the mares and foals.
- The BGRA provided support to Open House events at Clinton and Hanover raceways, and also attended several events at other tracks.
- The Drive to Win virtual reality harness driving experience made several stops since its launch in August, including Hanover Raceway, Grand River Raceway for Industry Day, the Woodstock Fair, the RCMP Musical Ride at Woodbine Mohawk Park, Harness The Hope at Western Fair Raceway and the final stop at Van Roekel Holsteins farm for a Christmas event on Dec. 3 with donations from drives on Drive To Win benefitting the London Children’s Hospital. From all of these events, 778 adults and children participated in the VR experience.
- The Youth Derby Awards Night (pictured above) was hosted at Mohawk on Oct. 14 with 22 finalists and their family members on site for a VIP experience that included paddock tours, a harnessing demonstration, rides on double seated jog carts, the Drive To Win VR experience and a meet and greet with drivers Jody Jamieson, James MacDonald and Doug McNair.
“We are very thankful for the generous support of many individuals and organizations in the industry,” said Hauver. “With the financial contributions from Tom Rankin and COSA [Central Ontario Standardbred Association], we were able to coordinate the youth contests and develop the Drive To Win Virtual Reality Experience.”
Before the official launch of the BGRA, several individuals gave freely of their time to assist. Kelly Spencer of True Nature Communications set up the website. Karen Hodgson designed logos for the BGRA and all of the youth contests. In addition, the BGRA was also supported by Marv Chantler, Equine Guelph, Ontario Racing, Standardbred Canada, Woodbine Mohawk Park, Clive Cohen and Dave Landry. BGRA would like to extend special thanks to Tammy and Jenna McNiven of Twinbrook Farms for providing video updates of the foal Unicorn, Jeremy Grabatin for his videography and Cujo Entertainment, who was instrumental in the technology behind the VR experience.
The BGRA would also like to extend its sincere thanks and appreciation to the team of volunteers who helped out at many events throughout the province: Karen Allen, Colleen Belore, Kathy Benjamin, Sandy Downey, Karen Duck, Karen Hargrave, Karen Hodgson, Denise Kunz, Ruleen Lilley, Robin MacKay, Betty Ann MacKinnon, Nancy Milcz, Sue Thompson, Marlene Travis, Raymonde Walker and Linda Yake.
“We couldn’t do it without them,” said BGRA director Jane Belore.
Plans are already in the works for next year. The youth contests will return in a revamped format for 2024 and Drive To Win is already scheduled for many events. There will also be some new projects for 2024 which will be announced in the New Year.
(With files from BGRA)