Ontario Horsemen Question Approach to Woodbine Cuts

The Horse People's Alliance of Ontario—a collaboration of Thoroughbred, Standardbred, and Quarter Horse owners, trainers, and breeders in the Canadian province—is calling for increased transparency and more accountability in the industry and in regulation because of concerns about changes to Woodbine purses in 2017.

"In order to make suggestions as to how the industry should not just survive but grow and flourish as it should, we have to be able to know what the playing field is before we can intelligently understand what the realities are, what the problems are, and how we can fix them," said Frank Roth, an attorney and chairman of the alliance, following a March 7 membership meeting.

"We would like the time to carefully investigate the financial disclosure, and all of the various financial and contractual undertakings that have been entered into, and then make sensible and intelligent comment and suggestions," he continued.

The meeting followed the recent release of Woodbine's 2017 stakes schedule, which reflects a $2 million reduction in purses, and a subsequent statement issued by the Ontario affiliate of the Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association objecting to the manner in which the purse cuts will be allocated by track owner Woodbine Entertainment Group.

The Ontario HBPA statement said that $1 million of the $2 million cut will be redirected to overnight purses, but the additional $1 million will be retained by the racetrack.

"The HBPA holds the view that the entire $2 million stakes reduction should be used to increase overnight purses. The HBPA's position could change if we were provided transparent evidence that WEG requires that other $1 million to assist in WEG operations for the betterment of horse racing. WEG has offered different reasons throughout the negotiations as to why they should retain half of the stakes cuts," the statement said.

The 2017 Woodbine stakes schedule reflects a purse reduction to $800,000, from $1 million, for the Ricoh Woodbine Mile (G1T), which last year was captured by eventual two-time Eclipse Award-winning turf mare Tepin. The Pattison Canadian International (G1T) absorbed a similar purse reduction from $1 million to $800,000.

Several more stakes races saw their purses slashed by $25,000 each.

In its statement, the Ontario HBPA stated that the racetrack is contemplating dropping one race per week over the 133-day season, which opens Apr. 15 and runs through Dec. 10. It says that move would result in a $500,000 cut in purses.

WEG has noted that moving the $1 million to overnight purses will benefit local horsemen. 

"As part of our core mandate, Woodbine Entertainment Group is committed to achieving the highest quality of horse racing. We're proceeding with an initiative to rebalance out overall Thoroughbred purse program, committing another $1 million to overnight purses, which will substantially benefit our local horse people. This reorganization towards overnight purses and resulting stakes purses reflects WEG's $68 million overall purse contribution in 2017," said Jamie Martin, WEG's executive vice president of racing.

The Ontario-sired racing program has been spared thus far and Martin noted that Woodbine has committed more money to race purses than mandated.

"Over $233 million has been committed to Thoroughbred purses at Woodbine from 2013 to 2017," Martin's said. "This represents $10 million over mandated purse levels. The reset of the purse structure also reflects the depletion of a purse surplus WEG has been deploying since the introduction of the Ontario sires bonus program in 2014. We continue to commit to working with our industry partners, who understand the challenges Woodbine faces in balancing the pressures of offering a quality horse racing product to our loyal fans and the significant expense attached to conducting our business."