Local racing media "coverage" · 26.04.10

To mark the beginning of the 2010 Hastings racing season (about which more later), the Vancouver Sun (“Seriously Westcoast”) ran a feature story on Saturday entitled “Raising the stakes for survival — With horse racing in decline, one local track may be on its last legs”. Under that alarmist headline was a story that featured almost as much good (or at least neutral) news as bad news. Attendance and wagering are down, fewer racing dates, “racing has lost its place in the sports entertainment world”, yadda-yadda, etc. The increases in concession sales last year, new promotional and advertising initiatives, more horsemen from outside B.C. sending their stables to Hastings — these positive developments are given relatively short shrift in deference to the story-line being pushed.

Given the most column inches in the story is the proposal from the BC Horse Racing Industry Management Committee (previously) to consolidate Thoroughbred and Standardbred racing operations in one facility (previously). The implication throughout is that it will be Hastings that is shut down if that happens, with all operations being consolidated at Fraser Downs — but nowhere in the article does anybody state that this will be the case. Even if that approach is floated, the decision is definitely not a “slam-dunk”. Hastings Racecourse has it all over Fraser Downs in terms of location: it’s close to the centre of population of Metro Vancouver, easily accessible by public transit, and part of an existing sports/entertainment complex (Hastings Park/Empire Fields/Coliseum/PNE) that dwarfs Cloverdale Fairgrounds, where Fraser Downs is located. Additionally, it would certainly be possible to expand Hastings’ exisiting 5+ furlong oval to 6-7 furlongs, in order to accommodate a 5/8-mile harness racing track on the inside.

As disappointing as this article is to any local horse racing fan, it should not come as a surprise. The Sun has not had a regular racing writer in years, and any coverage they present is little more than an afterthought. They couldn’t even get Hastings GM Raj Mutti’s name right in the picture caption. The writer of this article is one of many on the Sun sports beat, but he primarily covers soccer and to my knowledge has never covered racing before. In short, this article can be safely ignored — if/when Tom Wolski at The Province writes something similar, then we can start to worry.

If you liked this you might like:

What do you think?

  1. Tom DOES, in fact, have his hand on the true pulse of racing. Like the old commercial on TV about the investment house, When he speaks, people listen.

    — Dr. T. Yatcak · Apr 26, 04:21 PM · #

Textile Help