Harness racing's decline saddens veteran driver

One of New Brunswick's top harness racing drivers says it's time for the province to step in and help the industry.

Todd Trites of Fredericton says the decline of the sport saddens him.

Trites won more than 2,000 races during his career as a driver at the Fredericton track, around the provinceand at tracks inthe Maritimes.

He says this year has been especially hard to watch.

Horse Racing New Brunswick has reduced its summer card to only 12 races for the season, with just three races in Fredericton.

Cards cancelled

Saturday'srace at Exhibition Park Raceway in Saint John is cancelled due to "a shortage of horses."

A race in Woodstocknext weekhas been called off too.

It's depressing.- Todd Trites, harness racing driver

And now a legal fight is starting between the group and Fredericton Exhibition Ltd over a lease dispute.

"It's depressing," Trites said. "I really don't normally talk about it, because it's hard to think about the situation we're in now. Compared to going back not that long ago."

Trites says he and many other people in the sport can remember a time when the weekly races drew thousands of fans.

Glory days missed

"I grew up around the racetrack and I remember the Fredericton card, racing twice a week. They used to race Mondays and Thursdays. Saint John used to race Wednesdays and Saturdays, and Moncton raced Thursdays andSaturdaynights," he recalled.

"There were three tracks right in New Brunswick that were racing twice a week all summer long. All kinds of horses, all kinds of excitement."

Trites admits peoples' tastes have changed and that horse racing might not appeal as much to younger generations. However he traces the real decline of the sport in New Brunswick to the year the province opened its casino in Moncton.

"We were hoping to make a deal to make that racino like they have in Summerside and Charlottetown over on the Island where the horsemen get a percentage of the take off the casino," he recalls. "When that didn't take place we started taking steps backwards."

Government help needed

He says government intervention of some kind might be harness racing's best hope in New Brunswick, although it could be a hard sell.

"There's not the funding there with the government that we used to have and I understand that, I'm a father of four and I understand when they're closing schools and cutting back hospitals. It's hard to put money toward horse racing."

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Trites says tracks in P.E.I., Ontario and Quebec have revived interest in harness racing and are driving up revenues. He says the province should look to them as models.

"There are smarter people than me out there who say that with every $10 the government has invested in horseracing, they get $100 back with gasoline sales , hotels, ferriers, feed for the horses, there's a lot of money," he points out.

"We're just not getting the support from the government here that they are in other places."

Trites says the Fredericton Raceway with its covered grandstand could easily serve as the central track for a resurgence in the sport.