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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)<\/p>\nThe Fort Erie Race Track, which has employed locals for generations, fears it will have to lay off staff if provincial funding delays persist. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can\u2019t get those purses up, if we can\u2019t get horsemen \u2026 we have to start letting people go if we can\u2019t keep the lights on,\u201d James Culic, Fort Erie Race Track\u2019s communications manager, told CBC Niagara.<\/p>\n
No immediate job is at risk, Culic says, but next year’s budget may mean a different story. \u201cWe\u2019re in a very tight spot,” he says.<\/p>\n
The historic racetrack says the annual funding from the province, $35 million total across Ontario, has helped create summer jobs and fund purses \u2014 prize money distributed to groomers, trainers and owners of winning racehorses \u2014 in the last decade.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
For this year, \u201ceverything was lined up with Ontario Racing and Ontario Lottery Gaming (OLG),\u201d said Culic.<\/p>\n
The deal, however, didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
The agreement requires Woodbine Entertainment\u2019s signature, a condition made when the deal was first set up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s 13 other racetracks that are part of that funding deal,\u201d said Culic. \u201cThe larger portion that Woodbine takes, the less everyone else gets, including us.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement to CBC Niagara on April 29, Woodbine Entertainment said they \u201cunderstand and share the desire to see additional investment flow into the industry as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDiscussions are ongoing and constructive, and remain focused on strengthening the industry\u2019s long-term financial foundation,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
When asked about their demands, Woodbine Entertainment\u2019s communications vice-president Jamie Dykstra refused to provide details \u201cout of respect to the ongoing discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n
CBC reached out to the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming for comment, but was told to reach out to Ontario Lottery Gaming (OLG).<\/p>\n
CBC also reached out to Duncan Hannay, president at the OLG, with a request for comment more than two weeks before the story\u2019s publication, but received no response.<\/p>\n
Delay puts racetrack and horse breeders in a tough spot<\/p>\n
The horse racetrack, which opened in 1897 and is going into its 129th season, has been a major employer in the town for generations.<\/p>\n
In the high season, the racetrack hires about 200 full-time workers, including summer landscaping and student jobs.<\/p>\n
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)<\/p>\n
Fort Erie councillor George McDermott grew up taking on about a dozen jobs at the racetrack.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s 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,\u201d McDermott told CBC Niagara.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just direct employment,\u201d said Culic. \u201cWe buy hay from farmers, we get tractor equipment from local companies, local printers to print all our materials.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Horse breeders are also feeling the impact.<\/p>\n
David Anderson, president at the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society (CTHS), says withholding the $35 million has \u201ctremendously\u201d affected his operations.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Woodbine Entertainment is] trying to take this funding away from the owners and breeders of Ontario,\u201d said Anderson. \u201cThey\u2019re also trying to suffocate other racetracks such as Fort Erie. It’s unfair.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anderson said the offer was brought for renewal in November of 2025, but the delay caused Ontario thoroughbred horse breeders to miss this year\u2019s breeding season, which he says usually starts in February.<\/p>\n
The CTHS hosts yearling sales across Canada which provides vital business for horse breeders, selling horses between the ages of one and two.<\/p>\n
Anderson says the number of yearlings for its September yearling sale has dropped by over a third from last year’s.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s been a mass exodus out of the province and the [horse breeders and owners] won’t come back,\u201d said Anderson, adding that Canada is losing their business to the U.S.<\/p>\n
Minister says Fort Erie, horse racing \u2018worth protecting\u2019<\/p>\n
Niagara NDP MPP Wayne Gates has brought up the topic at Queen\u2019s Park on a couple of occasions, including May 14, when he pressed the issue further in the presence of Ontario\u2019s Tourism Minister Stan Cho.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor 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,\u201d said MPP Gates.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy 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?\u201d added MPP Gates.<\/p>\n
Tourism Minister Cho said \u201cthere is an offer on the table with Ontario Racing that is being looked over\u201d and details will be shared once they have more information.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe completely agree it is an industry worth protecting, that includes Fort Erie,\u201d Cho said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fort Erie Race Track, which has employed locals for generations, fears it will have to lay off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":["post-201107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}