The first interesting piece of news at the end of July is that General Manager Chuck Keeling announced his resignation effective October 1, 2010. For those who are not familiar with the history of Fraser Downs, Keeling's grandfather Jim Keeling Sr was the one who founded the racetrack at Cloverdale in 1976 - back in the days when it was known as Cloverdale Raceway. In the early 90's his son and Chuck's father, Jim Keeling Jr, took over the management duties. In 1996 he died rather tragically in a boating accident and his son Chuck took over running the racetrack. Huge shoes to fit for a young man in his mid-20's. Chuck has not announced what his new venture is other than to say it is nothing related to horse racing or gaming.
On Friday, August 13 2010, a newsletter was issued on the BC Harness Racing website. You can read it here.
Bottom line is the number of racing days at Fraser Downs has been cut from 37 days to 23 days. Racing was supposed to resume on October 1 but has now been postponed to October 15. All race days for 2011 have been cancelled, but there might still be racing next year, dates to be determined.
This is not good news for the horse owners and trainers and other persons who work in the backstretch of Fraser Downs. That is practically no income at all.
Awhile ago I posted about Fraser Downs moving into the 2000's. I was at the city hall meeting where the racetrack staff and backstretch people were all for a casino opening in Fraser Downs with slot machines. I went to the meeting out of curiosity. Bottom line is it didn't matter to me one way or the other. I've been to Reno and Las Vegas several times over the years. I did not oppose a casino opening at the racetrack.
The incredible thing was the horsepeople's attitude to this. Slot machines were good. It would save their racing industry. They'd be able to share in the slots revenue and the purses. Some sort of racetrack propaganda they were all blindly believing as several horsemen and women took the microphone to address the council.
I shook my head. I sympathized with them and for their jobs and way of life but they weren't seeing the bigger picture. These are not businessmen used to the corporate world. Well there might be a couple of semi-retired corporate types who got into horse racing as hobbyists, but we're not talking the majority of the backstretch folk, many of whom have not worked any other jobs. Corporate business people are used to meetings, contracts, budgets, crunching numbers, speaking with advisors, etc. Not so on the racetrack where gossip runs rampant and the scuttlebut clearly was that the slots would be a good thing.
I doubted it. I figured the casino would bring in a new clientele who lived closer to Fraser Downs than other casinos and would come to Cloverdale instead of driving into Newton, Coquitlam, Richmond, etc. The corporate busines people running Fraser Downs would be checking their spreadsheets and seeing that slots revenue was good and the wagering on the horse races not so good because they are two different business run under Fraser Downs. I knew the slots revenue would carry the horse racing along for awhile but eventually someone crunching numbers would see that the horse racing venture just wasn't that profitable.
I think this is just the first step.
Prepare for a mass exodus of horsemen to Ontario.
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