It took almost two hours to put a face to the misery being created in the equine industry since the provincial government killed the agreement it had with the horse racing industry.
County council held a public meeting to “put faces” to the devastation, as Warden Chris White put it. He said the county is going to fight for the program at the province, but it needs ammunition.
The province dumped its agreement to provide the racing industry with ten per cent of the slots profits for its racing purses in its March budget, and the effect was not only damaging, but immediate.
About 200 people attended the meeting in the idyllic outdoor setting in the courtyards of the county museum on May 29. When White asked for personal stories, it did not take long for people to present them. Many who said they stand to lose are only peripherally involved in the racing industry.
Diane Graham of the Ontario Equestrian Federation, said up to 60,000 people stand to lose their jobs. She said since March, “The industry is in survival mode.”
She said farmers are already losing up to $10,000 in orders for hay, and veterinarian business was off by 10% within three months of the announcement.
Barry Patterson, 70, of RR1 Paisley, said he has been in the horse industry “all my life.”
He asked, “Is this a done deal or can this be reversed?” He said Dalton McGuinty’s retraining programs are unlikely to work for him.
White said, “If we do nothing, nothing will happen,” and only a few years ago the province was promoting what it is now taking away.
Anna DeMarchi-Myers, of RR5 Rockwood and Emerald Ridge Farms, said, “The breeding industry is taking it on the front lines,” but she knows gasoline retailers, mechanics, restaurants and others who get income from the industry are also hurting.
Plus, she said, there is a five year window for raising a racehorse, from planning the breeding to eventually racing the progeny, but the unexpected provincial announcement gives the industry only a year to react before the money is slashed.
She said 40 to 50% of the breeding industry has already slashed its stud fee payments and breeders are cutting back on breeding mares.
“We’re sitting with a yearling crop to be sold this fall. I’m not sure if we’re selling – or for what.”
She added the Ontario Sires Stakes (OSS) program, which is a model for the world, is also being hurt.
DeMarchi-Myers said of the industry, “We’re willing to try anything. It’s on the verge of disaster.”
She added the government is killing many jobs in rural Ontario in order to provide a theoretical 2,500 in downtown Toronto. “I’m hoping somebody cares about rural Ontario … I don’t want transitional funding.”
Barb Miller, of Classy Lane Stables of Puslinch Township, said she and her husband invested $3 million in their farm operation in 2007 and run about 230 horses there. She said it is the largest and most complex training centre in Canada, which rents stalls to horse trainers. She said it has been “mainly full” for years, but after talking with trainers, she expects to see a 40 to 50% drop off.
She said the operation rents to American owners who want to take part in Ontario born and bred horses through the OSS program, but that, too, is being destroyed.
She needs to maintain 80% occupancy to survive, and, because the operation was designed for horse training, she will be unable to get her investment out. She said she could be “bankrupt and broke in 2013 at 57, with no hope of getting a job.”
She said people in the industry need to make changes.
Cynthia Davis, of Elora, raises horses at Woodbine and Mohawk race tracks. She married a race driver from the United States, and moved to this area when the Michigan racing industry died. She wondered where they will now move to in order to stay in business. She started in the equine industry at 16 and owned her first horse at 17.
“Everybody’s beginning to scramble,” she said. “I’m concerned about what my husband is going to do at 40.”
She said, “This has been a massive shock.” She said, generally, “The government doesn’t do anything quickly. They [the Liberal government] are going to destroy an industry in three months.”
She cited people who work in the industry for love of horses, with little education and working long hours, and said the government will not be able to “re-educate them.” She said grooms have “no social security, no families. They’ve worked hard their whole lives and they’re physically broke.”
White told her that is the information the county needs.
Sherry McLean, of Paradox and Gardener Farms of Caledon East, said she has 60 to 70 yearlings for the Ontario Sires Stakes ready to sell this fall – “and I’m scared. Good mares will go to the United States and never come here. We had a program we could be proud of … the States was watching because we could make a living. All the slots provided us was purse structure. What comes down from that is what’s important … We’re going to lose everything.
“Here we have a good program and people invest and they pull the rug out from under us,” McLean concluded.
Bill O’Donnell, of the Ontario Standardbred Association, said, “What they’ve done to the whole industry smells terrible.”
He called the Liberal’s plan for a transitional funding “a severance and goodbye.”
O’Donnell urged people to keep writing to MPPs, and “to hang in there. I know it’s hard.”
Another county woman offered yet another effect on the government move.
Donna Christie, of Sunrise Therapeutic Equine Centre runs a place for people with special needs who have a better quality of life by connecting with horses.
She said the world class facility depends on community support, and that includes the equine industry. She said she just received official notice one of the centre’s biggest sponsors and long term supporters “can’t continue” as the industry collapses.
“That’s really harsh,” she said of the effect on the centre. She said other sponsors are likely to follow, and “It’s really important the government know these cuts are affecting charities.”
John Flanigan, of RR2 Guelph, is on a farm that has been in his family since 1827, and he predicted “Things are going to change – big time.”
He started into racing as a hobby, and, “I know nothing else.” He wonders if he will have to move to New York, which has copied Ontario’s Sires Stakes program.
“I’m nervous,” he said.
Dale Wood, of Hillsburgh’s Woodlands Farm, a broodmare and racing farm, said she can boast of investors who use it to take part in the OSS program.
“Over 60% of my business are people in the oil business in Alberta. How many people can say they haul money out of Alberta to spent in Hillsburgh? You will not find a business like mine in Wellington County.”
She said the Ontario government has “no idea what’s ahead, and, “I have a lot of people who will be on unemployment, and then years on welfare. There was not one single job created in that budget.
Wood said, “This is a very bad government [to loud applause].,” She added, “So much money is lost in the last two terms it makes me shudder with anger.”
And Wood was never an opponent of the Liberal Party. On the contrary, “I was a Liberal all my life until this happened – and I wouldn’t vote Liberal again – ever.”
Gayle Ecker, of Equine Guelph, said its researchers have done some “amazing work” but “That’s under threat” because the equine industry helps sponsor that work.
Keith McClelland, of Stoneleigh Farms in Rockwood, said the industry has let the government define the battle. He said it began calling the slots partnership a “subsidy” and city people believe that is what it is, instead of the partnership that it has always been. He said that perception needs to be changed.
“It’s an outright lie,” he said. “It needs to be addressed.”
He added the government has framed horse owners as being elite rich people. “I’m a supply teacher. I work in order to be a farmer. That’s the plight of 70% of farmers.”
He doubted there were many millionaires in attendance and, “for most people it’s a struggle to get by and do something they love.”
McClelland characterized the problems as being “a rural-city divide.”
Kelly Spencer, the marketing manager of Grand River Raceway who also owns a video business focused on the racing industry, said, “It’s hard to express one’s self emotionally without being angry.” She has “all my eggs in the horse racing basket.”
Video coming
County officials did a video of the proceedings and asked the speakers for releases so they can show it to the public. White said the idea is to send it across Canada and let people know what is happening so there is more pressure on the provincial government.
County economic development committee chairman George Bridge said in an interview after the meeting the tales heard that evening are why his committee recommended the meeting.
Bridge said Ontario hay is so good it is shipped to Florida for feed in winter, and he knows the industry is being affected in Minto, where he is the mayor.
Centre Wellington Mayor Joanne Ross-Zuj said, it is “most important” that the people affected get their side of the story out to the public.
She said the racing business is one that “feeds back into the government. The big question is, ‘Why?’ and that’s what we want the answer to.”
White said he was pleased with the attendance. He said the meeting helped to show that it is the “average person” in the community who could be affected by the agreement being slashed.
“A lot of people have put up a lot of money based on a government program.”
