Interview with Ross McLeod · 2.11.08

Tommy Wolski’s Sport of Kings recently featured an interview with Ross McLeod, Chairman and CEO of Great Canadian Gaming Corporation, parent company of Hastings Racecourse. The interview focuses on the role that McLeod foresees for GCGC in the future of horse racing in BC, and future plans for Hastings itself.

Increasing purse levels, as was done earlier this year, was the first step, according to McLeod. More money available in purses will encourage more owners to send horses to Hastings. More importantly, it will encourage local breeders, who have faced hard times in recent years, to stay in business and expand their operations, increasing the population of BC-breds. This, in turn, will help Hastings to expand to a year-round three-day-per-week racing schedule (Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays), which will send a positive message to the public and encourage more people to attend the races and spend money at the track. More money from wagering (on- and off-track) means more money available for purses, which will encourage local owners and breeders, etc.

Track improvements are also on McLeod’s and GCGC’s agenda. He mentions parking improvements (the long-promised parking garage?), backstretch upgrades (new barns?), and perhaps corporate boxes in the grandstand. Unfortunately, no mention was made of the other major shortcoming at Hastings: the track itself. As I wrote back in February, regarding the state-of-the-art racetrack being planned for southern Alberta:

[G]iven a choice, what trainer would want his/her horses running on our little 5-furlong bull-ring, with its sharp turns and short straightaways, when those horses could stretch out at a world-class, full-size 1-mile track in Calgary?

The betting public also notices these things, I’m sure. Bettors watching simulcasts from Woodbine or Santa Anita, after seeing horses battling down a quarter-mile stretch, then look outside at the 1-furlong Hastings homestretch and the resulting blink-and-you-miss-it stretch drives — surely at least some of them feel short-changed. Here’s hoping that Ross McLeod and GCGC/Hastings recognize this and include this consideration in their plans.

Despite that one reservation, I get a very positive feeling from the interview. McLeod himself isn’t just a casino executive — he is also a horse-owner. As a horse-owner, it is in his own best interests to encourage the renewal of horse racing and the breeding industry in BC, and to push forward improvements in every area of Hastings — “the fun stuff, the good stuff”, as he puts it — and make it, in his words, “a first-class facility at the end of it all”.

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What do you think?

  1. Scuttlebutt has it, that many horsemen from Washington have applied for stall space next season alreaday in repsonse to these maneuvers.

    — Dr. Timothy Yatcak · Nov 3, 08:22 AM · #

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