Casie Coleman on the repercussions of losing her hometown track, Fraser Downs
by Melissa Keith
Casie Coleman is best known for winning five O’Brien Awards as Canada’s Trainer of the Year (2005, 2006, 2009, 2010, and 2012), racing primarily at Woodbine Mohawk Park. But her career began on the backstretch of Fraser Downs in Surrey, BC, alongside her family. She first began training there in 1997, and started driving in pari-mutuel races in 2000.
“I was born and raised there,” Coleman said. “I pretty much grew up on the backstretch. I think I was 20 or 21 when I left for Ontario with my parents. I was at Fraser Downs right from the time I was born. My grandpa raced there also. We were always stabled there, right on the backstretch. We went to a farm a few times, the McQueens’ farm, I don’t recall why, but we always came back to Fraser Downs.”
The news that BC’s only remaining harness track was shutting down immediately did not surprise the trainer, who has scaled back her operation considerably in recent years and now lives in Wellington, FL.
“I knew that racing was done when I read about the rat infestation,” said Coleman, referencing the news that Great Canadian Gaming was closing the backstretch in May due to a longstanding rodent problem. “There was always a huge rat problem at Cloverdale, Fraser Downs. The rats were as big as dogs. But really, they had no other way to get everybody off the backstretch.”
On Aug. 15, Great Canadian Gaming announced in a media release that Fraser Downs was closing permanently, effective immediately.
“I’m just shocked that it lasted as long as it did,” Coleman said. “Georgian Downs and Flamboro aren’t far behind, if [Great Canadian] can figure out how to have slots without racing. I›m just shocked that other people are shocked about it.»
Looking back on why she relocated from British Columbia, Coleman recalled that a mare who outraced the local competition motivated her family to try their luck in Ontario, Canada’s big leagues of harness racing.
“The reason we moved is, my dad had a really good mare called Fastlane Cruizin [p, 4, 1:51.2s; $539,607],” Coleman said. “Even then, they didn’t race for very good money at Fraser Downs. The purse money wasn’t good enough to just race there… The biggest reason we went to Ontario was more purse money and more secure racing.”
The BC-bred mare went undefeated in four starts at age 2 and won 11 of 14 starts at 3, competing in Alberta, at Fraser Downs, and at BC’s other harness track at the time, Sandown Park in Sidney, BC, which ceased operations in 2005.
Coleman trained Fastlane Cruizin starting in 1999; her father, Phil Coleman, initially drove.
“I learned everything from my dad, Phil, and mom, Linda Coleman,” Casie said. “I could sit up there and watch Fraser Downs from my school, Lord Tweedsmuir High School. Quite a few horsemen did go to that school. Cloverdale is not a big place. I’d run down at lunch and help out at the barn. I didn’t want to leave, but I knew I wanted to have a career in harness racing, and it wasn’t possible to do big things there. I went into full-time training horses right out of high school.”
One of the things Coleman said she missed about Fraser Downs was the backstretch community and the convenience of stabling horses at the track.
“The biggest thing is, I used to be stabled at Flamboro, and after the backstretch closed, we were always shipping all over the place… Everybody knew everybody [at Fraser Downs],” Casie said. “Now, you never have time to hang out, because it’s always go, go, go. In BC, we’d go to Sandown Park, which is closed now, or go to race in Alberta, where you would stable to race there, but in Cloverdale, everybody was always hanging out together in the track kitchen… It was almost like family, because it was a small community.”
The British Columbia native looked back on a specific trip back to Fraser Downs, when she realized that the writing was on the wall for the last surviving BC harness track.
“Years ago, in 2009, they flew me in as a guest speaker at Fraser Downs; I was flown in for a fundraiser for the Royal Jubilee Hospital Burn Unit,” said Casie, who received treatment for serious burns there after she was injured working as a groom at Sandown Park in 2000. “I was like, ‘Wow, nothing’s changed, the backstretch is exactly the same.’ The casino was gorgeous and new, but the backstretch was all run down… The horses had holes through their stall walls and the wood was all rotted out.”
Casie added her voice to a local campaign to try to keep standardbred racing alive at Fraser Downs, but she said that her hopes were not high for the petition’s success.
“I signed it and shared it, but it’s too late,” she said, with anger in her voice. “They’ve already kicked everybody out. [Horsepeople] can hardly get back in to get things they need [from the backstretch]… I’m sure [Great Canadian] dotted all their i’s and crossed all their t’s [to ensure legality in evicting horses and horsepeople].”
Casie said she was sympathetic to the plight of the BC racing community.
“I know they’re doing everything they can, but some of those Fraser Downs horses aren’t good enough to come to Ontario, plus there are broodmares and babies… I don’t know what they’re going to do with those horses,” she said. “It just sucks for those people.”
In her view, relocating to Ontario was a difficult proposition.
“I’m sure some are going to try, but Ontario is very, very tough racing… Hopefully they do well, but it’s not going to be easy,” she said.
The trainer and one-time driver remembered her own early days in Ontario, and how the experience changed her mindset.
“When I first went to Ontario, all I wanted to do was be a driver,” Casie said. “I quit driving because these guys were better than me… I was holding my own in BC, only really driving my dad’s horses.”
Casie said that her parents are still involved in harness racing, but on a greatly scaled-back level.
“They are semi-retired and work for a guy called Steve Doyle who has seven horses on a small farm,” she said. “He also has a hot dog truck. My parents still own one mare, Ezbriesybeautiful [p, 4, 1:57h; $58,546] I bought for them at Lexington as a yearling. She’s 6 now.”
Fraser Downs’ sudden closure blindsided the racing community in BC and its far-flung diaspora of horsepeople who started there, like Casie herself.
“Obviously it’s sad,” she said, cautioning that the BC track should be seen as a bellwether for other racinos under the same current ownership. “Many people were there for years. I’d like to go back and visit, but now it’s not going to be there for other people like me who started out there and went to Ontario… [The lesson is that] Great Canadian doesn’t want live racing at Fraser Downs, and they don’t want live racing at Flamboro and Georgian Downs.”
