The feeling around Woodbine Racetrack these days, other than a growing sense of despair and hopelessness, is: ‘Why them and not us?’ Read More
Woodbine workers struggling to stay afloat while other tracks remain open — Toronto Sun
The feeling around Woodbine Racetrack these days, other than a growing sense of despair and hopelessness, is: ‘Why them and not us?’
Because of the COVID-19 outbreak and the subsequent lockdowns, there’s no racing at the west-end oval, so there’s no money. A great many track workers are unemployed and are struggling to pay rent, buy food, even to find a place to live. Most of them don’t make much money when they are working. Many do not have savings, nothing to fall back on, few other work skills. Some small-time trainers and owners are on the verge of financial ruin.
These aren’t the people who are working from their home offices, ordering food and booze online, and taking time out to go on social media and lecture others about social distancing and staying home.
These are people who, if they’re not at the track working, they’re busted. These are the people who are worried, deeply worried, that their industry is on the brink of collapse.
“People are scared,” said owner and horse player Tommy Massis. “People are going to go out of business.”
And yet, there are tracks in North America — Gulfstream Park, Tampa Bay Downs, Oaklawn, Will Rogers Downs, for instance — as well as tracks in Australia, Japan and Hong Kong that are up and running and functioning somewhat normally, with strict social distancing in place and with no spectators in the stands. Grooms, hot walkers, trainers, jockeys and owners at these tracks are making money and staying afloat.
At Woodbine, people are desperate for racing to begin. Desperate to work. Desperate for, at the very least, an opening date they can focus on. The 2020 thoroughbred season at Woodbine was set to begin on April 18. That’s been postponed indefinitely. As of now, only essential workers are allowed at the Woodbine backstretch, to care for the horses.
Nobody wants to put other people in danger and spread the COVID-19 virus. But for some track people on the brink of financial collapse, there’s a growing feeling that the cure is as bad as the disease, particularly if there are steps that can be taken to limit the risk of contracting or spreading the virus. Already, workers arriving at the backstretch have their temperature taken and go through a series of health checks.
“The fact that Gulfstream and Oaklawn and Tampa are still going, how does that work?” asked prominent Woodbine trainer Julia Carey. “Why can’t we operate in the same way that Gulfstream does? Everyone is fine. Everyone’s making money. It’s good for the economy, it’s good for the city. The government doesn’t have to support these people.
“(Workers) are there anyway (caring for the horses in the backstretch), there’s only a few people extra that would be coming to work (when racing begins) and they could easily work in an isolated environment where they wouldn’t be contaminating each other in any work. It could work. It has worked,” Carey added.
“When you look at the situation in the U.S. and our situation here in Ontario, the two don’t look comparable, yet the tracks in the U.S. are fighting through (the COVID-19) and some smaller tracks are even taking advantage of the situation in the sense that their daily handle are at numbers never seen,” added Kevin Attard, another prominent trainer at Woodbine. “And we’re here wondering, when?
“We are all dependent on the income derived from winning purse money. Our local horse people based here in Ontario have not seen racing since last December. That’s a long time of just paying bills to keep these horses healthy. With the uncertainty of when we will be racing still to be determined, it’s having an enormous affect financially and emotionally,” Attard added.
Horse racing is a professional sport that doesn’t benefit from lucrative TV contracts and there’s no promise of a big-money payout from a network when the next season begins. If there’s no racing, there’s no betting and there’s no money. Woodbine CEO Jim Lawson is desperate for racing to begin and he’d love to be able to announce a start date for the 2020 season. But he believes it’s wrong to throw out a random date and give people false hope when he has to wait for the city and the province to decide when the lockdowns will be lifted.
“For now, we all have to sit tight and try to patient and understanding,” said Lawson. “When the state of emergency is lifted, we can start planning in detail. We are going to be completely guided by health professionals and directives as to what might be possible.”
Opening the track again is not an easy undertaking. Deals have to be reached with all sorts of workers not employed by Woodbine but are necessary for the operation of racing, such as stewards and drug testers.
One thing that scares people in the horse racing industry – and it makes the current situation even tougher to bear -— is that a lot people don’t care if the sport dies. Horse racing has been plagued with problems for years, most recently doping scandals and far too many horses dying under mysterious circumstances at some U.S. tracks in the last year. Many people would love to see the sport go the way of the Dodo Bird.
“With a lot of people, there’s a little bit of distaste (about the sport),” said Carey. “They’ve got the PETA people going around saying how cruel we are. A lot of people couldn’t care less. But (horse racing) is huge. And it’s been around since the dawn of time.”
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Woodbine workers struggling to stay afloat while other tracks remain open — Toronto Sun
The view from left field 