The Quebec government plans to announce details soon for a $9.2 million ad-hoc aid program for Standardbred racehorse breeders.
Provincial Agriculture Minister Claude Bechard is expected to announce the funding in coming days for horse producers and others, through a program that will run until the end of March 2012, the province said in a release Friday.
In the same release, provincial Finance Minister Raymond Bachand reiterated that there’s no more money earmarked for the horse racing sector, neither from VLT revenue nor from a share of tax revenue from parimutuel betting.
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Despite over $450 million in provincial assistance to the horse racing sector since 1995, it has continued to decline, the province said in its release Friday.
Bets placed in Quebec on horse racing dropped to $136 million in 2008 from as much as $315 million in 1990, the province said. Of the bets placed in 2008, the government said over 80 per cent were on races outside the province, shown via video in Quebec’s Hippo Clubs.
In what it described as a bid to extract itself from the sector, the province in 2006 transferred management of racetracks to a private firm, Attractions Hippiques, which in turn entered creditor protection in June last year.
The province said Friday it plans to ask for Quebec Superior Court permission to stop all provincial cash outlays to Attractions Hippiques when the protection hearing resumes Oct. 13.
The province is aware that the problems leading Attractions Hippiques into creditor protection have also affected producers and people employed in the racetrack sector.
That’s why the aid program for Standardbred horse producers will be put in place “very soon,” Bachand said Friday.
