The title of this column is a catch-phrase that the Toronto Maple Leafs (I’m not sure if you’ve heard of them?) have used in the past to try and represent their hockey club and its followers. However, considering that almost everything about the team - their players and management, the media who cover them and their fans - is completely dysfunctional these days, using that phrase, at this time, to describe them, is laughable at best.
‘The passion that DIVIDES us all’ is probably more accurate at this point in Leafs history.
Some might warn me that as a horseperson, I might not want to live in a glass house and throw stones, and it’s true that, at times, we can be a divided bunch. But I like to see the glass as being half-full, and some recent happenings are currently allowing me to see it as closer to three-quarters full - even though there’s still a long road ahead.
You may recall my February column in this very space? One that was entitled ‘When Are We Holding A Summit?’
Making note that wagering was down $97 million on Canadian Standardbred racing over the past two years, and that apparently our leaders were doing nothing about it, I called the industry out. And even though the column wasn’t even prominently featured on our very own website, it did make its rounds on social media, and on top of the 6,000 magazines that we print, it was also read another 1,200 times online.
I’m happy to say that shortly after the column started gaining traction on social media, I received phone calls and/or messages from four different industry leaders, who each told me they were indeed aware of our issues in regard to dropping handle, and of things they had in the works in that regard.
One of those people was Pat Woods - General Manager of Winbak Farm of Canada, and a Director on the boards of both Standardbred Canada and the SBOA.
Pat invited me to a meeting held in Milton, Ontario in mid-March, where he chaired and facilitated the discussion, and where I was one of approximately 30 horsepeople and industry leaders who participated. The topics we discussed were important and wide-ranging, and the ideas and solutions put on the table were really well thought out and spot-on.
The best part to me however, was that we sat in that room for over three hours - people who I have witnessed butting heads over racing related issues in the past - and there wasn’t one argument. The meeting was positive and very cordial. There were no politics or hidden agendas. Every person in that room was there because they’re passionate about our sport, and they want to see us clear the current hurdles we face - together.
WE - horsepeople - are the ones that are currently united by our passion. And that makes me damn proud.
Another thing that recently made me see how passionate we are as a group, was the incredible response we received to the online Betting Survey we posted on the Standardbred Canada website for a few weeks in early-to-mid March.
635 separate surveys were filled out, but it wasn’t just the volume of responses - it was the passionate comments that were submitted with the large majority of them. I’ve seen the results from a number of surveys in my time at TROT, and the ‘Comments’ sections are very often ignored - not this time!
People truly love this sport, and they hate seeing it fade. That was made abundantly clear by the number of surveys we saw filled out over a short period, and by the - sometimes very lengthy and in-depth - comments and ideas that were submitted with them.
The results of that survey, and a number of those comments, are presented to you in a nine-page piece that begins on page 28 in this issue. Granted, we weren’t allowed/able to print a number of those comments due to their content, but suffice it to say that our readers made it clear that correcting the situation we currently find ourselves in truly matters to them.
The passion for our industry is definitely still there - for many of us.
In my case, when I had a minute to think about it recently, I tried to remember exactly when that passion was first ignited, and it came to me rather quickly…
I was approximately five-years-old, and my family had just moved from a subdivision in Ajax to a 10-acre farm my parents built in north Pickering, complete with a small track, a seven box-stall barn, and a few paddocks. On the weekends we’d help in the barn, and one morning after he trained I was handed the leadshank attached to a gentle-giant by the name of Tough Stuff.
Five years older than me, my instructions were to hot-walk him outside for 15-20 minutes before he could go into his stall. I did what I was told, and luckily so did he. I was about three feet tall, and the monstrous trotter followed me around the yard like a puppy dog.
As best as I can recall, that was it. I was hooked, and the passion has only grown since, thanks to many more incredible animals over the years. Ok - and thanks to some incredible people too.
Kind of ironic… that his name was Tough Stuff.
We’ve got some tough days ahead of us, and some tough hills to climb, but horsepeople are pretty tough-stuff ourselves.
I know that if we remain PASSIONATE, and we stay UNITED, there’s truly no limit to what we can accomplish together.
Dan Fisher
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