City should help pay for racetrack

Horse Racing New Brunswick says its first choice is to keep the harness racing track in Fredericton and resume racing at the downtown location.

But the group’s president, Guy Barbera, said they are also open to a satellite location outside Fredericton that would include a track – and he thinks the city should help pay for a new facility that is part of a housing development plan. will be made for Part of a 31-acre site.

“That property has had horse racing and farm events for over 100 years. We want it to stay that way,” said Barbara of Information Morning Fredericton,

He thinks housing and harness racing can co-exist.

“We can put the barn with the housing on top of it and we can accommodate 200 or 300 new units there, and those units will have a great view of a nice green space, which is a track.”

The City and the Board of the New Brunswick Provincial Exposition have agreed to develop part of the 31-acre downtown property for badly needed housing. Roughly 15 acres will be used for development, while the rest of the land will be preserved and almost all activities, but not harness racing, will remain as is.

It urged horse racing New Brunswick last month to flood its exhibition group, commonly known as FREX, with enough members to influence board elections and control future decision-making.

This resulted in 250 new membership applications being received by the December 30 deadline. The Board started the year with approximately 150 members.

Barbara isn’t sure how many of the new members are motivated to return racing to Fredericton but said a “fair percentage” of them are friends, family or members of horse racing groups.

Despite the discussion at that December meeting, which was broadcast live on the Internet, Barbara insists that “boarding members on board was never about confrontation.”

He said, “The goal is not to rise above [the housing development], Our goal is to basically state that we’re here, we’d rather have housing around the track than be on the track, but you know we’re willing to look at other options.”

He said the group has always been open and “honest about our intentions”, and that their first choice is for harness racing to resume at the Fredericton Exhibition Grounds.

However, the City of Fredericton confirmed on Friday that the current bylaw zoning does not allow harness racing on the property.

The horse racing group’s second choice is for a new venue outside the city.

Because the sale of the land and the development of a large housing project would be “a huge benefit to the city”, Barbara said the city should help pay for harness racing to relocate.

“We are not against development… If the land can be put to better use, it should be done,” he said.

“If we’re not going to move there, we’d love to see 100-, 200-acre land outside of town that has an equine center, but not just for harness racing. We’d love to have our own track and our barn, but we would love to share it with draft horses and mini horses and hunter/jumpers and then cattle.”

Housing vs horseracing

Earlier this week, the executive director of the New Brunswick Provincial Exhibition, formerly known as the Fredericton Exhibition, or FREX, said she’s not sure which of the 250 new applicants supports the competing issue — new housing. or the return of harness racing.

Mike Woecki said his likely motivation would not be clear until the annual general meeting in the spring, although he said he could call for a special meeting to be held before the AGM.

On Friday, Barbara said her group had no plans to do anything before the AGM, which is usually held in April or May.

Reprinted with permission from irshadgul.com