Central Ontario Standardbred Association President Bill O'Donnell and Director Jim Wellwood were recently guests on the Bill Kelly Show on 900 CHML AM. During the broadcast, which can be listened to in this note, the pair discussed the crisis in the provincial horse-racing industry
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"Clearly there is going to be some contraction of the industry," Wellwood told Kelly. "Some of the tracks will probably withdraw as players. We're just going to have to find a way to reinvent ourselves and make a proposal. We've named a mediator. The government has got a spokesman, and we're moving in that direction. We have to table something in the way of a plan by the end of June this year."
Wellwood also stated, "There [has been] clearly no impact study done on this thing (the decision to abruptly end the program). Right now, even as we speak, the government, through their Ontario Sires Stakes program, is asking people to buy, breed and race in Ontario. Well, if you buy a yearling in September and hope to race it as a two-year-old next year (2013)… when the government pulls the rug out from under us there isn't a program (for the buyers to race their Ontario-sired horses in) for two-year-olds or three-year-olds. So, we've got a legal opinion on that and some of the other issues that are in this whole mess."
"I think they've kicked a bigger hornet's nest than they banked on here," said O'Donnell.
The segment, which has been broken up into four parts, can be heard by accessing the file links which appear below.