Bill O’Donnell: What is going on in Ontario

Double Hall of Fame harness racing driver now retired, Bill O’Donnell is the president of the Central Ontario Standardbred Association (COSA) and is facing the toughest challenge of his career.

COSA, along with Woodbine Entertainment (WEG) and the heads of all the racetracks in Ontario, are exhausting every effort possible to convince Prime Minister Doug Ford and the Ontario health commission to allow harness racing to resume in the providence.

There is not much that this group has not tried yet.

“We belong to OR (Ontario Racing),” O’Donnell explained. “COSA has a seat on the board. The Ontario government told us years ago to get together with all the racing groups and speak with one voice. Which we have done.

“We have gone to numerous government officials and met with the many MVP’s (Members Provincial Parliament) that have racetracks in their region,” O’Donnell said. “And everything was going along fine. We kept beating the drum all the time. And Jim Lawson and WEG have been fighting all along.

“But it seems we are beating the drum to deaf ears,” said O’Donnell.”

Ford called for a lockdown in Ontario back in December 2020, which cancelled racing for the first time. When racing resumed, without spectators, the protocols put in place at all the tracks worked until April, when Ford once again called for a lockdown and have since extended it from one month to six weeks with a possible reopening by May 20. Thus, no racing now in Ontario.

“Well,” O’Donnell added. “If all goes well, we can resume racing by May 20 but that would mean we would have to now get horses qualified for at least a week or two and maybe we could get started by June 1.

“But we have proven to the government that we can race, “O’Donnell said. “with the protocols. Woodbine did not have one case of covid while racing after the first lockdown and I think there may have been three cases out of the thousands of horse people that race at all the tracks in Ontario. We should be able to continue racing now.

“And for all we know,” O’Donnell added. “They (the government) could hold a press conference on May 6) and tell everyone we will remain shutdown for another two weeks. You just don’t know what to prepare for.

“Plus, we have hundreds of horses and now our top drivers, all leaving for the USA because they can race there,” O’Donnell said. “I can’t blame them.

“The horses that left and the drivers too,” O’Donnell explained. “They will all come back one we get racing back again. But a lot of horse have been sold to owners in the USA and they may not come back. I am sure that once notice is given to the horse people, we will be able to fill race cards and get our business back in operation pretty fast.

“Let’s put it this way,” O’Donnell laughed. “If you have horses ready to race, they will get raced. We also have a lot of stakes racing coming up for the summer, so if need be it won’t be too hard to reschedule stakes events so they do not conflict with each other.”

At this point of the pandemic, what can horse people in Ontario do to help COSA try and get racing going again and not wait for the May 20 date?

“I don’t think anything,” O’Donnell explained. “There is not much our people can do that COSA, WEG and Ontario Racing hasn’t done already. These politician’s pretty much follow party lines. There are more the 12 racetracks here and we had no problems, we have every protocol in place and have shown we can run our operations as well if not better than the food stores and restaurants.

“Our horse people were so great when we resumed racing,” O’Donnell said. “They encouraged each other to wear masks, followed every precaution and they all did it so well and it worked. And security was increased at the tracks and tough rules put in place for those that did not follow the protocols.

“We can just hope that people will continue to get vaccinated,” O’Donnell said. “And that these hot spots that keep emerging in the Providence begin to go away. Then we can get racing back.’

By Steve Wolf, for Harnesslink