Over the past few years, the Ontario Jockey Club has sold its racetracks, hunkering down to save every dollar. Now the racing business is so good, it's beginning to buy them up again.
Yesterday, the OJC said it had signed a letter of intent to buy a former rival, Flamboro Downs, a harness track 16 kilometres north of Hamilton.
The deal for the half-mile harness track is expected to be completed by January, subject to regulatory approvals.
Officials from the OJC have also been in preliminary discussions with the group that owns Hastings Park Racecourse in Vancouver. The options could involve simulcasting Hasting's program to OJC tracks or the OJC building a racetrack for both harness and thoroughbred horses in the Vancouver area.
The OJC's aggressive moves follow those of two major organizations that are snapping up racetracks in the United States. One of those organizations if owned by Frank Stronach, a Toronto entrepreneur who now owns Gulfstream Park in Florida and Santa Anita Park in California.
OJC president David Willmot has said he would not pursue the Vancouver interests if tracks were unable to get slot machines in British Columbia or if Stronach was sniffing around to buy B.C. tracks as well.
"We're not prepared to get into a circus like that," Willmot told the Thoroughbred Times magazine.
But Stronach appears uninterested in a standardbred track such as Flamboro, which is about to start up slots this fall. And the track's colourful owner, Charles Juravinski, seems ready to retire.
"At my advanced age, it is time to put the bits and pieces together, because contrary to public opinion, I do not believe that I am immortal," said Juravinski, 71.
Juravinski was one of the founding members of the track, which opened April 9, 1975. It is the home of the Confederation Cup, once an important race for three-year-old pacers.
Juravinski's plan to bring in slots makes the track attractive to the OJC. "I'm totally harassed and overworked," growled Juravinski yesterday, when reached by phone. He was referring to construction over the past two years to prepare for slots, which have revived racetracks in the province in a highly successful way.
Juravinski used to poke fun at the rival Ontario Jockey club, by hiring a plane to fly over OJC tracks whenever they were staging major races. The plane pulled a banner that advertised Flamboro Downs.
Over the years, the two operations have carved out their own home markets, and juggled racing dates to avoid interfering with each other's businesses. It wasn't always an easy relationship.
"Even though the OJC has in the past closed Greenwood and sold Fort Erie to consolidate its operations, the acquisition of Flamboro Downs represents a logical strategic addition in terms of shared home-market areas," Willmot said.
Flamboro has long been the OJC's largest simulcast partner.
The price remained a secret, but sources say it's sizable, given the fact that Juravinski has undertaken major renovations of the plant, and that the Hamilton-Brantford market is large and ripe for the expansion of all kinds of interactive wagering. "We're paying the moon for the place," an OJC source said.
The OJC has also been encouraged by the rise in purses because of revenue from slots. The purses at the OJC's Mohawk and Woodbine standardbred operations now rival those of The Meadowlands in New Jersey. When the New Jersey track shut down for the year last month, many of the top horsemen headed north to OJC tracks.
The OJC move is an aggressive one to control the entire Toronto market. It puts it in a good position to sell its racing signals to other tracks in North America.
Only 20 per cent of the money wagered at standardbred tracks is done on-site; the rest comes from teletheatres or simulcast deals with other tracks.