Summerside Raceway Season Ends – Cui Bono?
Horsetalk
By
Hal Hennessey
Balanchine and Brodie MacPhee win the Charles MacDonald Memorial. Photo by Gail
MacDonald
The last evening card of the year went to the post at the ‘Charlottetown Driving Park’
this past Saturday night, as racing moves to its Fall schedule. The CDP now reverts to
Saturday & Sunday afternoons. O’Brien and Lady Slipper stakes plus the Charles
MacDonald Memorial were features of the 12 dash program. Interestingly enough, the
Maritime’s top driver Marc Campbell, won 5 races on the card, that also had a race
honouring the memory of his grandfather. Mr MacDonald was a long time owner and as a
mailman of many years standing, was well-known, not only in his community of Orwell,
but throughout the area. He passed away on October 8th of this year. His memorial race
was won by Balanchine in 1:55.3. Brodie MacPhee did the driving for trainer Jackie
Matheson and owners Mike Pollard & Joey Gallant. The Western Paradise colt Forever
Paradise took a Joe O’Brien 2 YO gold division for owners Reg, MacPherson, David and
Aaron MacKenzie. Reg also owns a piece of the other division winner Western Maverick
with partner Ian Smith. Lady Slipper filly golds were won by Tom McGuffog and Geoff
MacNeish’s Dont Tell Cindy and the Blair Hansen owned, Articulator sired Western
Judy. Lady Slipper grassroots divisions went to the Brandons Cowboy filly Rose Valley
and to Waterside Scamp by N Xample. A Quebec invader Mr. MacLeod, owned by
Chester Turnbull, won the sole O’Brien grassroots race.
--------------------------
No winners from down east on Saturday night. For that we have to go to the CDP’s
Thursday program. Brodie MacPhee continued his winning ways there and had 4 on the
card, while Stephen & John Quinn’s Brief Bliss won the feature in 1:56.1. Kathy Furness
had a winner in Zanzibar – mile in :59.4. As well, the Selkirk Stable’s Selkirk Artemus
won his class in 2:01.
---------------------------------
Meridian Farms Honors David Rose with Memorial Claiming Series. Photo by Ann
MacNeil
‘Summerside Raceway’ staged the opening leg of the Meridian Farms sponsored David
Rose Memorial claiming series last Sunday. Second leg goes this Sunday at the CDP. It
was SRW’s final card of the year and the Prince County Horsemens Club had special
presentations and prizes for horsemen and fans. The winners in the 5 divisions of the
claiming series were; Nf Debutante, down east challenger Huey’s Boy owned by Sean
MacSwain, Cam Cool, Buck Barker and Yankee Sun. Only one claim in the series thus
far. Im Dreamin N was taken for the $3500 price after finishing 3rd in 1:59.3.
Narragansett won the day’s feature race in 1:58.3. Three divisions of the Greenhawk
Amateur Driving Series were also staged during the final race program. Michelle
MacDonald, Jonah Moase and Mitch Tierney won their respective races. Trainer Blaine
McKenna was able to hold on to the top trainer position at the Prince County oval,
sending out 14 winners during the campaign. Driver Marc Campbell secured the top
driver spot with 33 victories.
-----------------------------The 14 race program at Summerside produced a total wager of $17,966 or $1283 dollars
per dash. In Charlottetown on Saturday night the total wager was only $22,563, for an
average of $1,880. Difference was of course, the CDP had a preferred pace that went in
1:55.3, with the best horses in the Maritimes and Gold stakes for both colts and fillies.
Yet SRW managed to post a bet that was again second best in the Maritimes. But still,
I’m reliably informed that the Poobahs issued instructions that only 29 race dates again be
sought for 2013 at ‘Summerside Raceway’. I’ll comment more on this in the future, but
as I’ve said before, someday Wes Sheridan, his civil servant liaison and his family
compact group of ‘advisors’ are going to have to justify, to fans, bettors and the public of
Prince County, why they discriminate against that part of the province. They seem to
habitually favour that famous 10 mile golden circle around Charlottetown. I’m also
continually surprised that other government MLAs from up west, don’t get this and aren’t
asking questions. Cui bono – who benefits indeed? Is this possibly all about grabbing
those fall Sunday afternoon dates, for the insiders group racing at the CDP? Many think
so. That’d answer the cui bono question.
-----------------------------
Marc Campbell posts 110 victories in Drive For Charity event. Photo by Ann MacNeil
Back in the spring, the Atlantic Lotto’s management team at the PEI tracks, introduced a
new charity event. The moving forces behind it were COO Tom Mullally, Racing
Manager Brett Revington and Marketing/Sales head honcho Lee Drake. To say it was an
overwhelming success would be an understatement. The idea was that for each win by
their driver, 12 sponsors would contribute $25.00 to the charity of their choice maximum $1,000. It ended Sunday at SRW and I haven’t got the official tally yet, but by
my calculations something in the area of $10,000 plus will be donated to worthy causes
on PEI, thanks to the sponsors, horsemen and Harness Racing. That’s quite a feat and one
to be lauded by all, whether you are a fan of the sport or not. Unofficially the top 5
sponsors, drivers, charities and win totals were:
Image Works – Marc Campbell – Prince County Hospital – 110
Clarke Nissan – Jason Hughes – Oak Acres Children’s Camp – 71
Jamie Pound Remax – Brodie MacPhee – Children’s Wish Foundation - 55
Metro Building Supplies – Mike Stevenson – Camp Gencheff – 54
D&D Lawn & Landscaping – Walter Cheverie – PEI Humane Society - 52 Tie
Service Master – Kenny Arsenault – Children’s Wish Foundation – 52 Tie
Other participants in no particular order included:
Daniel R. Ross – Terry Gallant – Camp Gencheff
BMO – Brian MacPhee – Hospice Palliative Care at Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Noonan Fuels – Mark Bradley – Children’s Wish Foundation
Campbell’s Concrete – Corey MacPherson – Cancer unit at QEH
SignCraft – Norris Rogers – PEI Humane Society
Kwik Kopy – Gary Chappell – Easter Seals Society
Excellent job by all, you folks have done Harness Racing proud!
-----------------------------Short Shots
Congrats to Ambyr (MacPhee) and Brent Campbell – twins, Mylah and Brielle!
Best to the families, especially great –grandpa Alex MacPhee.
John MacDonald had another good night at the office last week. 5 more wins on the
Thursday night card at Rideau.
James MacDonald misses out on 1st Breeders Crown Drive - photo by Michael Stone,
courtesy of Standardbred Canada.
Gotta sympathize with young James MacDonald. Had his first Breeders Crown drive
last Saturday night and the horse was scratched. He was a long shot – but still.
He’s having a great year though - ninth on the Canadian wins list with 264 as of this
writing. Another of our young drivers Robert Shepherd is tenth with 258.
Harness Racing’s biggest sale starts Monday in Harrisburg Pa. This year over 2300
yearlings, race horses and breeding stock go on the auction block. Check it out here;
http://theblackbook.com.
----------------------------Horses For Courses:
Island horses swept the Turner Memorial Stake divisions at Truro Sunday.
Both Mr. Thompson (Dan Ross & Boyd MacDonald) and Touch Of Lightning (Gerald
Morrissey, Peter & Don Smith, Larry Chappell) were winners on the afternoon card.
Earlier in the week Sean MacSwain’s Hoosier King won at Western Fair in 1:56.4.
At Georgian Downs, Addys Way did it again for Gary and Brett Revington – mile in
1:54.2. Patrick Shepherd’s Stayoutofmyaffair got the job done at Kawartha Downs in
1:54.4. At North Side Downs it was Libbybeans in 2:04.4 for the Buntainwood Farm
folks
----------------------------Questions/Comments? hal.al@sympatico.ca
The Post Script
Big news this week was the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs
(OMFRA) report on horse racing issued on Tuesday. If you have the patience read it here;
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/about/transition/finalreport10232012.htm.
Basically they recommend that racing go from 1300 dates to about 800 and that purses
drop to $60 million dollars from the $160 million they raced for last year. And thus far,
there has been no great public outcry over it. The majority of Ontarians don’t seem to
know about the issue and/or are ignoring it. That’s not good at all.
The report doesn’t really apply to the Maritimes, but a couple of quotes from the
executive summary should catch the notice of local industry leaders.
For instance this “Scanning other jurisdictions, the panel could not find a single example of a viable horse
racing industry without some form of public support. Even so, the panel found it would
be a mistake to reinstate SARP, (Slots At Racetracks Program). The program has
provided far more money than was needed to stabilize the industry – its original purpose
– and has done so without compelling the industry to invest in a better consumer
experience.” (my red highlights). Now regular and long-time readers will remember that
very early on, when my columns started, I wrote extensively about the Ontario industry’s
leadership and their ‘take the money and run’ philosophy. Even to the present day (see
column above), we have warned of the danger Maritime racing faces if it fails to rebuild
the fan base and the wager. Recently I also took a look at columns from years ago. Sure
enough, even back then, I was warning Island industry leaders about taking advice from
their friends in Ontario. This was in the pre-racino days, when Mitch Murphy and
‘advisors’ were leading junkets of Poobahs to the big smoke on the taxpayers dime. They
supposedly went to check out the Ontario system. They loved it of course and no doubt
the welcome they received. Problem is, they just didn’t realize what was happening up
there. Today, 15 years after SARP started, Ontario’s racing industry has received $3.7
billion in slots revenue, while the fan base dwindled and up until 2 years ago the wager
dropped by 10% annually. Now they are in deep do-do. That’s why some folks keep
stressing how important rebuilding the fan base and garnering vital public support is on
PEI and that it should have started a long time ago.
--------------------------------One of the OMFRA panels major recommendations was this, “Currently, more than 60
per cent of purse money awarded in Ontario horse races comes from SARP – a source
unrelated to the horse racing customer. The new model will make the industry more
customer-driven by basing all purse money on the industry’s share of pari-mutuel
wagering.” And this quote from the report sends a warning shot across the bow of all in
the game,
“The panel concluded that any further investment of public dollars in the industry should
be based on clear public-interest principles, namely:
- Accountability
- Transparency
- Renewed focus on the consumer and
- Return of each public dollar invested to government through tax revenues.”
You notice how many times these folks mentioned public, customer and consumer in the
report? Do you ever hear any of that good old accountability, transparency, or particularly
‘renewed focus on the consumer’ locally? Truth be told, the public, consumer/customer
or fan rarely appears on the radar. Quite the contrary, look at some of those on chat lines
etc. attacking fans, bettors and other horse people, because they dare to ask questions.
What does that tell you of the mind-set of not only the anonymous posters, but also of the
folks they are acting on behalf of? Granted there are those with honest differences of
opinion as well, but they sign their names.
-----------------------------------Even this past week, with the musings of PEI’s Finance Minister and his thoughts about
the PEI economy, some folks continue in a state of denial. And there seems little interest
in looking for ways to improve the situation. Au contraire, as I indicated in my column
above - on many of its 29 race dates ‘Summerside Raceway’ is the second best
performing track in Atlantic Canada. But now they’ve closed it down. And a whole lot of
fans and bettors in the Prince County area are basically told Fk U! Please come again next
year. Nice way to garner public support eh? And riddle me this; if because of finances,
government ever goes to war against racing on PEI as it has in Ontario, do you think there
would be a mass outcry of public protest? Hasn’t happened at the center of the universe,
why would anyone expect it to happen on the Island? With underwhelming public
support, it would be pretty easy for the politicians to shutter the tracks and just run the
casinos. Think about it.
----------------------------The David Rose Memorial claiming series, is creating lots of interests – online and off, I
might add. Five divisions! And a pretty good bet at SRW considering the card had no
preferreds etc. Just goes to show, as I have said many times, horsemen and fans love the
idea of more claimers. Great idea for a series and the first time in a long time rank and
file overnight horses like these, get a crack at some decent money late in the Fall. The
$1500 per elim that Meridian Farms has put up, the $1500 Consolation and a chance at
the $6000 Final, is not too shabby anywhere, not just on PEI. Now I know it drives critics
crazy to see me giving any credit to Meridian and the Andrew boys, but it is what it is.
Everybody is entitled to their opinions - on here you get mine. A reminder, the series
resumes Sunday at the CDP with a great card, including the bearcats in the Preferred. As
well, Saturday at the CDP it’s the Island Breeder’s Finals highlighted by the Glamour
Boys including; First Art Down, So Classy, Paradise Station, Lyndale Royal, Dukes Up,
Mr Thompson, Howmacs Rocket and Touch Of Lightning. Should be a dandy as well.
Post Time 1 PM.
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And on a more serious note; Since OHW, I’ve had notes, emails and phone calls about
ORC/MPHRC investigator searches at the CDP that week and what they found.
Concerned horse people are upset nothing has been said or done since then. They also
mention other infractions and the MPHRC’s failure to enforce the rules. These folks
claim these matters are discussed regularly on the backstretch and are no secret. I have
asked Dr. Hogan, the MPHRC’s Director of Racing for a comment on a number of
occasions. He has yet to reply and that in itself raises questions. It’s worth remembering
The MPHRC is a government agency. It is funded by the Maritime Council of Premiers
and is not a plaything of industry leaders or politicians. The public is entitled to answers
from it.
----------------------Have a good week.