The Fort Erie Race Track, which has employed locals for generations, fears it will have to lay off staff if provincial funding delays persist.
“If we can’t get those purses up, if we can’t get horsemen … we have to start letting people go if we can’t keep the lights on,” James Culic, Fort Erie Race Track’s communications manager, told CBC Niagara.
No immediate job is at risk, Culic says, but next year’s budget may mean a different story. “We’re in a very tight spot,” he says.
The historic racetrack says the annual funding from the province, $35 million total across Ontario, has helped create summer jobs and fund purses — prize money distributed to groomers, trainers and owners of winning racehorses — in the last decade.
Culic says the Ontario government is not the problem. In fact, he says they have been financially supporting the racetrack with recuperating revenue loss from slot machines that were removed in 2012.
For this year, “everything was lined up with Ontario Racing and Ontario Lottery Gaming (OLG),” said Culic.
The deal, however, didn’t go through after Woodbine Entertainment, owner of two horse racetracks in Toronto and Milton, Ont., requested a bigger slice of the $35-million pie, Culic says.
The agreement requires Woodbine Entertainment’s signature, a condition made when the deal was first set up.
“There’s 13 other racetracks that are part of that funding deal,” said Culic. “The larger portion that Woodbine takes, the less everyone else gets, including us.”
In a statement to CBC Niagara on April 29, Woodbine Entertainment said they “understand and share the desire to see additional investment flow into the industry as quickly as possible.”
“Discussions are ongoing and constructive, and remain focused on strengthening the industry’s long-term financial foundation,” the statement said.
When asked about their demands, Woodbine Entertainment’s communications vice-president Jamie Dykstra refused to provide details “out of respect to the ongoing discussions.”
CBC reached out to the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming for comment, but was told to reach out to Ontario Lottery Gaming (OLG).
CBC also reached out to Duncan Hannay, president at the OLG, with a request for comment more than two weeks before the story’s publication, but received no response.
Delay puts racetrack and horse breeders in a tough spot
The horse racetrack, which opened in 1897 and is going into its 129th season, has been a major employer in the town for generations.
In the high season, the racetrack hires about 200 full-time workers, including summer landscaping and student jobs.
Opened in 1897, the Fort Erie Race Track annually hosts the Prince of Wales Stakes, a prestigious thoroughbred racing event and second jewel in Canada’s Triple Crown. (Diona Macalinga/CBC)
Fort Erie councillor George McDermott grew up taking on about a dozen jobs at the racetrack.
“It’s really not fair to these guys because they all work so hard to bring people here [to Fort Erie] and they provide jobs for the community,” McDermott told CBC Niagara.
“It’s not just direct employment,” said Culic. “We buy hay from farmers, we get tractor equipment from local companies, local printers to print all our materials.”
The funding is especially essential for those who earn their living off horse racing, including those who clean out the stables, walk, care and train the racehorses.
Horse breeders are also feeling the impact.
David Anderson, president at the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society (CTHS), says withholding the $35 million has “tremendously” affected his operations.
“[Woodbine Entertainment is] trying to take this funding away from the owners and breeders of Ontario,” said Anderson. “They’re also trying to suffocate other racetracks such as Fort Erie. It’s unfair.”
Anderson said the offer was brought for renewal in November of 2025, but the delay caused Ontario thoroughbred horse breeders to miss this year’s breeding season, which he says usually starts in February.
The CTHS hosts yearling sales across Canada which provides vital business for horse breeders, selling horses between the ages of one and two.
Anderson says the number of yearlings for its September yearling sale has dropped by over a third from last year’s.
“It’s been a mass exodus out of the province and the [horse breeders and owners] won’t come back,” said Anderson, adding that Canada is losing their business to the U.S.
Minister says Fort Erie, horse racing ‘worth protecting’
Niagara NDP MPP Wayne Gates has brought up the topic at Queen’s Park on a couple of occasions, including May 14, when he pressed the issue further in the presence of Ontario’s Tourism Minister Stan Cho.
“For more than a century, the Fort Erie Race Track has been a mainstay for tourism, job creation in Niagara, supporting hundreds of jobs in agriculture, breeding, training, racing and marketing,” said MPP Gates.
“Why is the premier [of Ontario] allowing Woodbine Entertainment Group and one person, Jim Lawson [executive chair at Woodbine], to delay the government from delivering these urgently needed resources?” added MPP Gates.
Tourism Minister Cho said “there is an offer on the table with Ontario Racing that is being looked over” and details will be shared once they have more information.
“We completely agree it is an industry worth protecting, that includes Fort Erie,” Cho said.