TUESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2010
HORSE RACING AT FRASER DOWNS
GOING, GOING, GONE? Announcement to reduce race days ‘just puts the nail in the coffin’
The face of Fraser Downs
“We’re supposed to be partners with Great Canadian, but they just treat us like we’re second-class”
Ray Gemmill has been with Fraser Downs right from the beginning. Ted COLLEY Staff Reporter
T
he backstretch at Fraser Downs has been Ray Gemmill’s home away from home for 34 years. Once a driver and now the owner of four standardbred racehorses, the octogenarian is still active at the track. There’s a move afoot, however, to drastically cut the number of race days at Fraser Downs and that has Gemmill
worried about the track’s future. In fact, he’s worried about the sport’s future in B.C. It’s 10:30 Monday morning and the temperature is already up there. It’s going to be another scorcher. Gemmill sits in the shade outside one of the barns, shooting the breeze with some of the other backstretch folk. The subject of conversation? An Aug. 13 letter from Derek Sturko, an assistant deputy minister in Rich Coleman’s Ministry of Housing and Social Development, about
❚PHOTO/Ted Colley
the future of racing in Cloverdale. Gambling – including horse racing – is part of Coleman’s portfolio. Sturko heads up the BC Horse Racing Industry Management Committee and the government’s Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch (GPEB). He is not the bearer of glad tidings for Gemmill and his colleagues. His writes that horse racing, like other businesses, has been hurt by the recent recession. Revenues are down and the economic future is uncertain. see TALK OF SPLIT SEASON, 7
It’s been a tough go at Fraser Downs. Revenues are down and the future is uncertain, so many on the backstretch already looking for other work.
❚PHOTO/Sharon Doucette