No fire sale for Kawartha Downs
The goal of the company running Kawartha Downs in receivership is to keep it operating as a harness racing facility.
On May 18, a court-ordered the Fraserville standardbred facility be placed into receivership under the guidance of Rosen Goldberg Inc. That company appointed Orazio Valente as president of The Courtice Group created to oversee operation and divesting of 16 companies previously owned by Harvey (Skip) Ambrose placed in receivership. Valente is now general manager of Kawartha Downs which is one of those 16 companies.
Court documents indicate Ambrose owes $97.3 million to Toronto-based lender Rompsen Investment Corp., for loans that were supposed to be paid in 2015.
Valente acknowledged Kawartha Downs will eventually be put up for sale but there is no rush or timeline to do so. In the meantime, there will be no disruption to the 18-race 2017 schedule.
“There will be no fire sale,” Valente said.
In fact, his company is investing money to upgrade the facility.
“We are updating the audio-visual equipment and the sound system based on feedback from customers,” he said.
They’ve made changes to the dining room menu and lowered prices and intend to modernize betting terminals.
While the harness industry has had its challenges in recent years, Valente sees the track as a viable business as supported by consistent attendance and wagering figures the past couple of years.
“I think Kawartha Downs has a lot of potential,” said Valente, much more so than many businesses he’s taken over in his line of work.
“A lot more than a strip mall that is 90 per cent vacant,” he said.
Court documents suggest Kawartha Downs is the most valuable of Ambrose’s former properties, valuing the 114-acre property, which also hosts a slots facility operated by Shorelines Casino and a stock car track which has just three scheduled events this year, at $20 million. Valente said that doesn’t mean the company will expect to recoup that amount in a sale. His goal, though, is to find a buyer that intends to continue to operate the harness facility.
When asked if he’d like to make more use of the stock car track, Valente said he’s open to all ideas.
Peterborough MPP Jeff Leal, as minister of agriculture and rural affairs, has played a key role in keeping the track operating. He facilitated talks between Ambrose and a transition panel overseeing the restructuring of the harness industry following the cancellation of the Slots at Racetracks Program (SARP).
Those negotiations led to a fiveyear funding agreement in 2013, a last-minute deal which kept the track from closing. The deal has since been extended another two years.
“I heard rumours for a period of time that Mr. Ambrose was in some financial difficulty,” Leal said. “I certainly didn’t know the precise details of that financial difficulty. When the story broke in (The Peterborough Examiner) he was kind enough to send me a letter to indicate he was no longer involved in the operation of Kawartha Downs.”
It’s been reported that Kawartha Downs’ annual share from SARP, which ran from 1998 to early 2013, was $6.5 million. When asked about Ambrose’s financial difficulties and what may have happened to all that SARP money, Leal said: “I think that’s only a question Mr. Ambrose can answer since he was running the operation.
“To be fair to Mr. Ambrose, he owned a variety of companies in the province of Ontario. He was in waste management, recycling, I believe he was in some property development.”
Still, the lack of accountability was one of the reasons, Leal said, former premier Dalton McGuinty scrapped the program.
“One of the things that was a challenge under the SARP program is there was very little accountability to where the money was flowing,” said Leal.
He said he’s encouraged by what he’s seen from new management.
“They seem to be very devoted to horse racing,” Leal said.
He said he’ll do what he can to help find a new owner.
“I hope in the next little while to sit down and have discussions with the new general manager and share some ideas about the future,” Leal said. “I’d like to play a role as always with any issue that impacts Peterborough riding.”