Members of the native harness horse racing neighborhood are involved about their future after certainly one of two horse racing tracks in Metro Vancouver instantly closed with out discover.
Cloverdale’s Fraser Downs Racetrack introduced it could shut down instantly earlier this month after the Metropolis of Surrey knowledgeable the racetrack’s proprietor it was terminating its lease.
Trainers had been making ready for the racing season to start out in September. The information of the sudden shutdown has left them scrambling.
“I’m feeling a way of anger that they didn’t give us warning and simply don’t know the place we’re going subsequent with all these horses,” says Randy Rutledge, who owns a farm in Aldergrove.
He says he’s taken in a few of the displaced horses from Fraser Downs.
“Lots of people which can be grooms, they’re caught with no job. They’re going to should get into one thing else and study one thing else.”
Cody Easton, a coach at Fraser Downs, says breeding a racehorse is a long-term funding.
“All of the horses which can be bred in B.C. have now been devalued as a result of their incomes potential is minimize down by most likely 10 instances if no more,” he stated.
The monitor, BC’s solely standardbred racing facility, has been a fixture in Cloverdale since 1976.
Annoyed trade members held a rally exterior the adjoining Components On line casino Friday night, saying the town’s choice ends not solely horse racing but additionally a long time of native heritage.
“We’re simply making an attempt to rally collectively to indicate the Metropolis of Surrey that what they’ve executed is simply unsuitable,” stated Brent Invoice, a Fraser Downs coach and a demonstrator at Friday’s rally.
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“It’s going to harm lots of people. It’s going to do away with quite a lot of horses out of the neighborhood. It’s simply dangerous.”
In an e-mailed assertion, Surrey mayor Brenda Locke stated the town is ending its lease with Fraser Downs to start planning and pre-construction work on revitalizing the Cloverdale Fairgrounds and City Centre.
“This revitalization will ship new housing and public areas, assist the $3-billion hospital, develop recreation just like the Sports activities & Ice Complicated, and create a stronger venue community for cultural occasions,” she stated.
“The racetrack and backstretch occupy greater than 12 acres on the coronary heart of the Fairgrounds. Releasing that land now permits us to construct the inner highway grid, utilities, and websites for recreation and cultural services that the neighborhood wants.”
However for the harness horse racing neighborhood, the loss is fast. Many racers say they’ve been left with nowhere to go and no option to get well years of funding.
“For my part, there’s no approach the town can perceive the trade and the viability of it,” stated Easton.
“If the mayor had an concept of what goes into this trade and the impact this trade has on the financial system, then she wouldn’t simply pull the rug out from beneath us. There would have been session. Even when there was a plan to develop, you make a plan, embody us in your plan and provides us a timeline for when growth goes to start out.”
Hastings Racecourse in Vancouver stays the one horse racing facility left within the Decrease Mainland. It hosts thoroughbred horse racing occasions, whereas Fraser Downs hosted standardbred racing.
The lease for that racetrack expires subsequent Might. Vancouver metropolis councillor Mike Klassen says the seek for a everlasting stadium for the Vancouver Whitecaps might be an element within the monitor’s destiny.
“I believe, for the imaginative and prescient that’s being put ahead proper now, it’s undoubtedly round the place the racetrack is,” he stated.
“It’s a big quantity of acreage proper there so it is going to solely take a part of that, if certainly it goes ahead. The opposite facet, the place we had the previous Empire Stadium, that’s doubtlessly an choice. however after all that’s an actively used park facility and never one which we need to take away.”
Animal advocacy teams in B.C. have been vital of the horse racing trade. In a information launch Monday, the Vancouver Humane Society stated it welcomed the top of horse racing at Fraser Downs.
“Whereas the closure at Fraser Downs marks an finish to racing at that web site, it’s emblematic of a wider, long-overdue shift away from horse racing,” stated Vancouver Humane Society marketing campaign director Emily Pickett.
“Horse racing inherently topics horses to stress and hazard, debilitating accidents, early bodily decline, and at instances deadly outcomes.”
The VHS says it’s tracked a minimum of 14 horse deaths on the Hastings Racecourse since 2023.
