Quinte, Trenton, Burgess Doesn't Care

Published: May 11, 2009 12:50 pm EDT

The Belleville Intelligencer has today published an article about the harness racing family of David Burgess, which, at this point, doesn't care if the new racetrack

comes to either Quinte West or Trenton.

The article states that the Cambridge, Ont. family moved to Quinte West last October in order to race at the new facility. Now they find themselves making a three-hour trip to race at Rideau Carleton Raceway. If luck doesn't go their way on the track, the family pays to race.

"We moved here because we've heard good things about the Quinte race track project," Burgess was quoted as saying. "It doesn't really matter to us whether they run it out of Belleville or Trenton. We just hope the new track will be built as soon as possible."

Click here to read the Belleville Intelligencer article in its entirety.

(With files from the Belleville Intelligencer)

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Comments

"If it is already built, they may not come..." We only need to look a bit further to the East to see a situation where harness racing essentially has disappeared from the entire Province of Quebec, as a consequence of a government "backing the wrong horse." Luckily, Quebec's loss of standardbred industry investment money has been Ontario's gain.

Good stuff Dave. This situation seems to be. Listen, we know nothing has been done, but if you just be patient and do nothing (like we are doing), we assure you much more of the same in the future!!!!!!!

If you build it they will come. However the OLG, ORC and especially Baymont Corp. have modified this statement somewhat to " if we say were going to build it just not when, will they still come?" Too bad what should have been good news to racing fans and particpants in Eastern Ontario has turned into just another of the blunders by industry regulators.
The failure to properly do their due diligence as they expect other industry particpants to do on the company in question and their proposal is laughable. Now their continued blind faith support of the developer in the midst of all they have seen or should that be not seen is typical of bureaucrats who refuse to admit when they have made a mistake. Why ORC/OLG was their no date certain ever asked for or a penalty imposed if there were avoidable and lengthy delays? How can you continue to have unequivocable support for the proposed project based upon what you know that the rest of us with just a hint of common sense don't. When called before the Standing Committee the answers given by the Chairman and the Director were less than satisfactory, so either they are not informed properly by their staff or just plain don't get what kind of a situation they have allowed to happen, yes this situation is definately on the list of things the ORC has failed to do as a regulator. Racing in the Quinte region and in general deserves better from those who purport to be in charge.

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