I decided its about time to continue where I left off on the Cloverdale Raceway and the grandstand in the 80's.
As Cloverdale Raceway entered the 1990's, attendance was diminishing and racing was down to 3 times a week - Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday - between October and April. On statutory holidays there would be afternoon racing if the holiday fell on a week day. There were also a couple of extra nights racing starting in September and occasionally into late April or early May. During the summer months the Standardbred horses raced at Sandown Raceway, near the ferry terminal at Sidney on Vancouver Island, about a half hour drive from Victoria.
Patrons were no longer flocking to Cloverdale on racenights they way they had been in the early 80's. People were finding other forms of entertainment with slot machines and tables opening around the Lower Mainland. Cloverdale Raceway stopped charging for parking in the fairgrounds parking lot and stopped charging admission into the grandstand in an effort to boost attendance by making it more consumer friendly and accessible. The grandstand underwent more renovations and The Clubhouse became a well known dining experience, whether or not a patron was interested in horse racing, with an outstanding buffet.
In 1996 the name changed from Cloverdale Raceway to Fraser Downs. Racing nights had their ups and downs, anywhere from two nights to four nights a week. The racetrack had trouble keeping quality horses, trainers, and drivers due to low purses. Anyone with talent and a good stable of horses headed to other Canadian racetracks with higher purses where they had a better chance of earning a decent living.
Throughout the late nineties the racetrack management attempted to get interest to install slot machines in the grandstand, believing this would be the only solution to saving the racetrack, but mostly their efforts fell on deaf ears. Horse owners and their stables headed east, purses remained low in Cloverdale, and the remaining horse people stuck it out hoping things would get better.
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