Although the start of the Thoroughbred racing season in Ontario is still a week away, the province ushered in a new era on Friday with the official regulatory changeover from the Ontario Racing Commission (ORC) to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO).
“Today marks yet another significant step in the evolution of racing and how it will be regulated,” AGCO chief operating officer Jean Major said in opening remarks during a one-hour webinar. “[Thursday] the ORC, as a corporation, was dissolved. And today is the first day that the regulatory authority for racing is being transferred from the ORC to the AGCO, with a new statute, new rules, and new responsibilities for the administration of industry programs, and a new appeals process for licensees.”
Although the new entity that will be in charge of regulating all forms of horse racing in the province is aiming for as seamless a transition as possible, Major made it clear that the entire regulatory program will soon be up for an overhaul.
“I am committed to undertake a thorough review of the regulatory framework for racing later this spring,” Major said. “We will be seeking an engagement with everyone in the industry. It will be a fairly comprehensive review, looking at all of our rules or racing, all of our policies, all of our processes. The aim will be to have a modern regulatory framework that will assist the industry in its next steps of evolution.”
The province's sweeping realignment of how racing is regulated, supported and marketed is the result of a 2014 decision by the province to have the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) take over the administration of the Transfer Payment Agreements (TPAs) that the government has with racetracks in the province. TPAs support the industry by providing funding for purses and operational costs at tracks that run live racing, and the OLG will distribute approximately
$93 million of government funding to racetracks in Ontario in 2016-17.
In conjunction with that shift, when the province's lawmakers passed the omnibus Budget Measures Act of 2015 last December, one of the bill's components integrated the operations of the ORC with the AGCO.
“In simple terms, the AGCO is the regulator of horse racing, and the OLG is a partner with the industry on the business side,” said Doug Hood, the AGCO's director of policy and planning.
Hood pointed out that some rules creating new offenses will go into effect immediately, such as statues that specifically outlaw “cruelty to horses, for wrongfully affecting or attempting to affect the outcome of a horse race, and for conduct that undermines the integrity of racing.”
Brent Stone, the AGCO director of racing, said others are semantic in nature: A fine will now be called a “monetary penalty.” An investigator is now an “inspector.” A hearing will be a “review.”
And the way those reviews will be conducted is entirely different. A newly formed Horse Racing Appeal Panel, made up of members who have both racing and regulatory experience, will adjudicate all in-race and drug offense-related infraction appeals. The granting, renewal, suspension, or revocation of Ontario racing licenses will be kept separate under an entity called the Licence Appeal Tribunal.
Stone said Thoroughbred stewards and Standardbred judges will also be held to more transparent standards. One new initiative is that they will all be issued AGCO smart phones, and that their work schedules, phone numbers and email addresses will be posted on the AGCO website to facilitate public interaction.
An existing officiating tool that right now gets only occasional use might have an expanded role within the new AGCO. The province already has a “central adjudication room” that is similar to the offsite officiating headquarters where replays are scrutinized in team sports, such as professional hockey. Right now, Stone explained, its chief use is to house a third racing official when two harness meets overlap within the province and two onsite judges are backed up by a third housed in the offsite facility. But using it to officiate in other ways and for Thoroughbred racing will be considered.
“The central adjudication room is a place that we're very proud of, and we think that it has a place in the future in regulation here in Ontario, and we're actually looking at refurbishing the room and re-purposing it as we go along,” Stone said.
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