While OLG has said racing would take place there in 2026 and 2027, neither Great Canadian Gaming nor Ontario Racing has made a scheduling decision for next year
Is Georgian Downs trotting toward the end of its harness-racing program?
With the Innisfil entertainment facility entering the final weekend of its 2025 Standardbred track season, Great Canadian Entertainment, which has run the property since 2005, confirms it has yet to decide on a plan for racing next year.
“Our current focus is the successful conclusion of the 2025 race meet at Georgian Downs this upcoming weekend,” Chuck Keeling, a vice-president for Great Canadian, told InnisfilToday. “A decision regarding a 2026 meet at Georgian Downs will be made in conjunction with Ontario Racing, and other vested stakeholders, in the coming months.”
The future of racing at Georgian Downs has been up in the air for more than a year. In April 2024, Gateway Casinos announced to Innisfil council it had purchased a 25-acre parcel of land at 239 Reive Blvd. in Cookstown, which was part of the former Innisfil Creek Golf Course.
Then, in June of that year, Innisfil council unanimously supported a minister’s zoning order (MZO) for Gateway to move its facility to Reive.
That MZO was approved just over a month ago; the proposal calls for the development of a casino, hotel, restaurants and other commercial uses.
The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) said prior to the start of the 2024 racing season that racing would be held there into 2027.
Dave Briggs, a communications specialist with Ontario Racing, says any decision on next year’s racing season is premature, and his organization has received word from OLG that the casino will remain in its current location next season.
“Ontario racetracks must submit their request for 2026 race dates to the Ontario Racing board with enough time to get those dates approved and sent to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario by the end of this year,” he said. “That process begins in the fall.”
Briggs also emphasized that, if Georgian Downs closes, local stables will be fine — there are a dozen tracks in Ontario offering several levels of competition, including “what many consider the greatest harness racetrack in the world: Woodbine Mohawk Park in Milton.”
“Horsepeople based in the area have long been blessed with considerable choice to race their horses in Ontario,” he said. “While the end of horse racing at Georgian Downs — if that happens — would be sad given the great history of horse racing in the area started by the opening of Barrie Raceway in 1965, the good news is the purses offered now at Georgian Downs would simply be redistributed to other Ontario racetracks and available to horsepeople in the Barrie area to try to win.”
Most of the province’s racetracks are west of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). With the growth and development in the GTA stretching through the Barrie region, land for stables is at a premium and many owners have already moved closer to where both tracks and farmland are more plentiful, Briggs said.
“While having a local option to race horses is convenient, most of the horsepeople in the area have long raced horses all over Ontario where they can find the best opportunity,” he said.
Gateway — a company based in British Columbia — took over the casino at Georgian Downs in July 2018, as one of its 31 casinos across Canada. It will continue to lease the Georgian Downs casino space until the new facility is ready — it has a target opening date of Jan. 31, 2028.
Racing is scheduled for Aug. 30 and 31. For more information, visit ontarioracing.com.