A monthly newsletter from Standardbred Canada’s Chair of the Board of Directors.
Story by Jackson Wittup
I am writing this column from home in Calgary, where, after a long season at Fraser Downs, I am now in holiday mode.
The 2010 North America Cup -- wow, what a race!!! I would like to congratulate Sportswriter, Casie Coleman, Mark MacDonald and the rest of the connections. What a perfect race! With six of the ten horses going off at less than 10-1, by my rough count close to $500,000 was bet on the race alone, and the local hero won!!! $3.1 million was the total bet that night, and Nick Eaves of WEG seemed happy -- the on-track handle was up 10% over last year.
I have just finished watching the Queen’s Plate, too, and of course this year was very special with Her Majesty being in attendance. I looked at the figures quickly and it seems to me that over $2.1 million was bet on that race alone. Horse racing is still thriving, clearly -- but it looks to me like it will be event-driven in the future!!!
In last month’s column I mentioned there was a joint meeting of the Strategic Planning/Governance & ByLaw Committees that took place in June. Those meetings went very well and if the recommendations are approved by the Board, Standardbred Canada should be able to become more involved in the standardbred industry at a national level. The main point to come from the Strategic Planning Committee was that in the past the plan was too overwhelming and unattainable. The new plan is scheduled to have four main themes (Organizational Advancement, Revenue Generation, Government Relations, and Industry Advancement) and then points pertaining to each theme will be implemented that are relevant at the time. One key recommendation of the new Governance Committee is that management be given more power to manage, with the Board giving management more direction. As well, some Committees are to be eliminated or combined. There was a full Board meeting in July and I will give another update in my next column.
On behalf of the Directors and myself, I would like to congratulate the management, staff, and writers of Trot Magazine on achieving top honours at the 2010 American Horse Publications Awards. Our publication, for the second year in a row, won the General Excellence award in its circulation bracket. Trot also won for best breaking news feature, best feature story, and best magazine cover page. I read the press release over and over looking for a “Best column written by the Chair” award, but I didn’t see one!
Congratulations this month go out to Leo Burns, who drove a winner at the Clark County Fair in Illinois on June 7. Why is this important? Leo is 95 years old!!! At the other end of the scale, young Justin Currie nabbed his first career driving win in June at Fraser Downs. Congratulations to both of you!!
I found this year’s State of the Industry issue of Trot (May 2010) very interesting. I was relieved to see there was no research done specifically on middle-aged, (a couple of pounds) over weight, balding race secretaries who enjoy the odd beer!!! (Do you agree Ian and Scott???)
Until next month!!!