champagne artair: Mitchell optimistic for industry | Local | News

Monday, January 28, 2013

Mitchell optimistic for industry | Local | News | The London Free Press

Hugh Mitchell can still see it ? 7,000 people on their feet, leaning out against the rail, and the wall of sound as they cheered.

?It was almost deafening. I was a kid, and the horses were running to the wire. It was so exciting There was an energy,? said the chief executive of Western Fair Raceway.

?My mom and dad would drag me to Western Fair when I was about 10 years old. I remember it like it was yesterday, the horses grunting down the track. It was the soaring ?60s and sizzling ?70s, the only form of true gaming then. It had a monopoly and it prospered.?

Today, it?s different. Crowds are sparse, and the industry is on the cusp of change that will forever alter the sport, and perhaps the agricultural and rural culture.

Mitchell compares the atmosphere at the track then to Budweiser Gardens today when everyone cheers a London Knights goal ? another thing he knows a little about, as he captained the Windsor Spitfires in the mid-1970s and played college hockey for the Guelph Gryphons.

He finished his university career with a degree in agricultural business. ?You learn the financial management side of the business, you learn about the agricultural sector,? he said.

That comes in handy at Western Fair, which has not just the track and agricultural shows, but also four pads of ice for hockey, combining his passions, he adds.

After graduating from Guelph, Mitchell?s first job was with Purina in Woodstock, selling animal feed in surrounding counties.

He moved on to become agricultural manager of Western Fair, beginning a back-and-forth experience during which he returned to Purina as marketing manager, then back to Western Fair to be raceway manager before becoming assistant general manager.

In 1998, Toronto?s Woodbine Raceway made him vice-president of standardbred racing.

?My love of racing drew me to work at the premiere racetrack in Canada and it was a huge responsibility. I am always looking to take on more responsibilities and workloads,? he said.

Western Fair again called Mitchell and he returned in 2005 as chief operating officer, becoming chief executive in 2009.

But if there?s been one constant in his life, it?s been horses. He grew up in Lambeth, son of a veterinarian who worked at Western Fair Raceway; that?s how, at the tender age of 10, he first experienced screaming racing fans.

The horse influence runs deep in the family ? his brother is a veterinarian in New Jersey.

Mitchell also has two horses, Nash and Mattie, on his eight-?hectare Delaware-area hobby farm.

?I was hooked on horses. I loved them even at a young age.?

Mitchell, who had a front-row seat for the sport?s heyday, has one for what may be its decline.

?It became very competitive and racetracks are very expensive,? he said of the decline that began in the 1980s, when greater competition arose for the gambling dollar. ?It takes a huge piece of land, a lot of bricks and mortar, and it is very labour-intensive.?

In the 1990s, the Slots at Racetrack Program was implemented. Tracks were given money for slot machines the province installed at tracks. Knowing slots would hurt racing?s bottom line, the province doled out part of slot profits to the horse industry as compensation.

At Western Fair, the track has received $10.5 million and the horse industry and purses another $10.5 million, while the province has taken in $75 million and the city about $4 million.

Ontario will announce a new funding plan in which it will give less to tracks and the industry. Many fear it may kill what?s left of horse racing in Ontario, a $2-billion?-a-year industry, with about half the tracks shut down.

But Mitchell, remains optimistic, saying the changes are painful, but necessary.

?Once we get our industry right-sized and refocused on the customer, we may have a chance to prosper,? he said.

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Hugh Mitchell