The Similkameen News Leader
Editorial
June 24, 2008
WHAT RACING DAYS MEANS TO ME
My former boss, Laurie Currie, was President of Princeton Racing Days for many, many years.
In fact, he was the first President of the group that brought live horse racing to Princeton and after 25 years in that position, he had to step down for health reasons.
I took the role on in 1990.
I had next to zero knowledge about horse racing and had up to that point never been on a horse in my life. I was as green as it gets, but I truly understood the meaning of the event to the local economy.
That part I got just about right away.
I remember sitting down one Racing Days weekend and roughly figuring out that about 2-million dollars changed hands in the two-day weekend. That was years ago, and what I always found interesting about that economic shot in the arm was that a very large chunk of that sum went to a handful of non-profit organizations that hosted events during Racing Days weekend.
Those groups put most of that money right back into the community. That still happens today.
I remember trying to get across to the other racetracks in the interior circuit that the
'tradition' of Racing Days is what made it such an important event and losing horse racing would seriously hurt our community and it's local economy. I couldn't bear to see Racing Days end (the writing was on the wall) and that, along with other reasons, caused me to step down from the President's seat in 1999. In my years as President the event had gone from a two-day race card to a single day. It then did not happen for three years.
In those years pretty much every other event continued, but without live horse racing - the major attraction the tradition did not seem the same. Something was missing and I think the community suffered as a result.
Now that live horse racing has returned, we can all get back to what we do best celebrating, visiting, having fun and raising money for worthy causes.
I'm so very glad to see the traditional celebration continue feeding our local economy, which is what it was originally designed to do back in 1965.
In the three years without live horse racing a replacement event was never found that could draw such a crowd and bring so many of us together to enjoy our lives in the Similkameen in such a celebration.
Long live Racing Days!
