AND THEY’RE OFF: SHORT SEASON STARTS AT KAWARTHA DOWNS
Horses and their drivers warm up during opening night of the harness racing season on Saturday at Kawartha Downs. The track will host 18 race dates this season.
There were no blue skies to be found on Kawartha Downs' rainy opening night but there was a blue tinge to the nine-race card.
As in Progressive Conservative blue.
Haliburton-Kawartha LakesBrock MPP Laurie Scott and Peterborough riding candidate David Smith were special guests of track general manager Orazio Valente on Saturday night. The fourth race was called the PC Pace.
The Fraserville facility opened its 18-race schedule under a cloud of uncertainty beyond this year. KD is one of three Ontario regional harness tracks to not sign a 19-year funding agreement, which starts in 2019, proposed in March by the Liberal government. There were 12 tracks to sign on but Valente maintains the agreement didn’t do enough to address revenue losses the track will sustain when Shorelines Slots leaves this fall for a new casino in Peterborough. Valente said he sees no future for KD under a Liberal government so he’s lobbying opposition parties, ahead of the June 7 Ontario election, for support. He said an invitation has also been extended to local NDP candidates.
“I want the candidates to see the product for themselves and see the support Kawartha Downs receives from the local community,” said Valente. “I want that to be in the back of their minds in a month from now if they’re forming the government and making decisions on horse racing.”
If elected, Scott and Smith said they’ll work to secure a future for Kawartha Downs and area horse people.
“They’ve been bullied by the Liberal government into trying to sign an agreement that has no future in it for small tracks,” said Scott. “We want to work with the horse breeders, drivers, horse tracks and horse people to get a better deal so we can have racing at Kawartha Downs. We used to have 100 races and it used to be a good business. Farmers and breeders could raise horses and have a future. Right now, with 18 races, you can’t have a business plan here and horsemen can’t stay in business.”
“This is an employer who employs 150 employees,” said Smith. “We can’t be looking at it as anything less than an industry with 150 people working for it. If someone were to come along and say, ‘I’d like to relocate my company to your riding and bring 150 jobs with it,' we’d be working night and day to bring that industry here. I don’t understand why the Liberals are trying to push this industry out. It’s not just Kawartha Downs, it’s all the ancillary economic impact.”
Trainer Mike Sutton lives in Young’s Point but he no longer races horses at KD.
He says he drives to Woodbine in Toronto to make it worthwhile economically, adding it pains him to say that.
“If there were more race dates here, I’d race here all the time,” said Sutton. “You can’t get by on 18 dates. It’s heartbreaking. When I moved to Peterborough I thought it would be great because Kawartha Downs was three exits away.”
Cavan’s Barry McClenan has raced horses at KD since it opened in 1972. He’s seen the track in trouble before. “If people keep talking things will come about, it always does. So, we’ll just hope for the best,” he said. “Somehow it always works out.”
Jim Huck, a KD employee for 12 years, said staff were relieved to be open after weeks of uncertainty.
“We put this together in the last week and a half to two weeks,” Huck said. “We’re getting a lot of support from the racing community and a lot of people are happy to be back. The staff are happy to be back. It’s just seasonal, obviously. We used to be here full-time racing Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday with a 90-date schedule. Now we’re down to 18. It’s unfortunate but we’re here and working to make it successful.”