It was a festive atmosphere at the Dresden Raceway, as the 2014 harness racing season kicked off.
With the parking lot packed, the stands littered with fans, and a gigantic eight-foot long cake celebrating Canada’s birthday, it was literally all smiles at the Raceway – even inside the pace car.
“It’s a great atmosphere here today,” said Dave Prier, the long-time starter at Dresden Raceway. “It’s a long time in coming. I’m glad the weather held out for sure. It looks like we’ve got a good crowd and people are having a little bit of fun. That’s what it is all about.”
Tim Fisher, the pace car driver in Dresden for the past 37 years, said the horsemen needed a boost.
“This is a boost because everybody is here today,” he said.
Today also marked a new era at Dresden Raceway, as the Dresden Agricultural Society has assumed the operational duties at the track this season.
Lucille Laprise, president of the Agricultural Society, said it was a “fabulous” start to their season
“The community has been so supportive in all of the areas,” she said. “We’ve got people that I’ve met here today that have come from Sudbury, Ingersoll, Windsor, Leamington, Sarnia, Tilbury, Chatham-Kent. There are tons and tons of people, the parking lot is completely full. We’ve got a full 10 race card. The horses are running so nicely, they are just beautiful. It’s a beautiful day, a nice breeze, cloudy but now the sun is coming out. We can’t ask for a better day.”
Laprise added the Agricultural Society “worked really hard to put this together, with a lot of help from a lot of other people, the horsemen, the Horticultural Society, other race tracks have been encouraging to us, supporting us and helping us out.
“I want to thank anyone that has supported us in any way to bring the racing back to Dresden. We want Little Saratoga to be alive and well again. We are not here to see the horse industry die. We are here to watch it grow, and grow and grow. We want it to grow right here in Dresden,” she said.
Laprise also praised the newly hired General Manager of the Dresden Raceway, Greg Blanchard.
After running the London track for the past year, Blanchard was asked to come on board in Dresden.
“I wasn’t sure what to expect,” he said. “I knew there was a long history here and I knew it was a hot bed for racing. This validates it today to see a crowd like this, it’s fantastic.”
Blanchard said some special promotions can be expected for the rest of the year.
“Today was really about getting up and running and get things off the ground,” he said. “There are a lot of new people involved. We were kind of starting from scratch this year. From an operational standpoint, we’re happy to see it go the way it has gone so far.”
Blanchard said it will be a work in progress all summer.
“We’ll try and have special events each day,” he said. “We want to try and make each racing event, with only 11 LIVE days, to make them something special for the audience. We’ll try to build on that, we’ll try to ramp up the promotions as the summer goes on. We’ll look to cap it off with a bang on Labour Day, bringing back some old traditions and introducing some new ones as well.”
North Kent Coun. Joe Faas said he was impressed with the turn out as well.
“It’s almost looking like it used to year ago when racing was pretty prominent,” Faas said. “We look at the turn out and the enthusiasm, the races are good, the pay offs are good. There is nothing negative I can say, it’s a positive experience.”
Racing continues on Sunday, July 6. Here is the rest of the schedule as well.
Here are some more photos from the first day of racing for the 2014 season at Dresden Raceway:
