More about Cloverdale fairground's racetrack

When the grandstand at the Cloverdale fairgrounds transitioned into spectator seating for the Standardbred horse racing, changes came slowly. Most notably enclosing the structure, gating it in, so as to control paid admission into the grandstand. $2/person if memory serves correctly and back then racing was 5 times a week from mid-October to mid-April, during the off season for the Thoroughbred racing at Hastings Park in Vancouver.

By the mid-80's attendance was slacking off a bit. Other forms of entertainment were pulling racing aficionados away from the Cloverdale Raceway. I remember when traffic on racing nights was lined up down 176th Street to the Fraser Highway and sometimes even further north of the Fraser Highway. Bumper to bumper crawl into Cloverdale, trying to turn left onto 60th Avenue and the entrances to the fairgrounds. Back then there was no priority left hand turn lane signal.

Then in the mid-80's racing downsized to 4 times a week. I don't recall for sure, but I think it was Monday night racing that was bumped, leaving racing on Wednesday and Friday nights, and during the afternoons on Saturday and Sunday. Then the change was made from Wednesday night to Thursday night so that meant Standardbred racing was on 4 consecutive days.

Food service in the grandstand on racing nights consisted of a couple of hot dog and hamburger stands. There were a lot of wagering windows open where tellers took racer's bets.

There were a lot of horses still racing in Cloverdale even though the purses weren't all that great. There were several large horse barns in the backstretch area plus a couple of smaller horse barns closer to the grandstand on the parking lot side.

That left 6 months of the year when there was no racing at Cloverdale. During the off season Standardbreds shipping over to Sandown Park on Vancouver Island or over to one of the tracks in Alberta. There was also a couple of weekends of racing in mid-September, the fair meet, which was in conjunction with the now defunct fall fair that used to be held at the Cloverdale fairgrounds.

The Cloverdale racetrack headed into the 90's with a waning popularity.