Page 16 - August 2019 Thoroughbred Highlight

Bill Galvin (Left) with the group of supporters of the presentation to Fort Erie Council which included persons from the racetrack as well as descendants of the persons who signed the original petition
SAMUEL JOHNSTON AND THE 270. . .THE FINAL CHAPTER
The date was June 16, 1897. Sir Wilfrid Laurier was Prime Minister of Canada and William McKinley was the newly inaugurated President of the United States.
It was also the opening day of a newly minted Fort Erie Race Track, a brand new facility poised to host horse racing, a sport with its Canadian roots on the Plains of Abraham in 1767, a sport that survived wars and depressions and was part of the Canadian fabric, before basketball had been invented and before baseball had had its own professional league.
The following year in 1898, the Grand Circuit of harness racing, which is an organization devoted to the development of the trotting sport, found its Buffalo operation challenged by anti-betting legislation, and in response moved it’s meeting to Fort Erie. The
rst Grand Circuit harness racing in Canada was conducted in Fort Erie in 1898.
But even as the horses streaked across the nish line on closing day of that inaugural meeting, dark clouds were gathering over the future of horse racing in Fort Erie.
The transfer of racing dates to the Fort Erie site was not without its political problems, for shortly after the close of the inaugural Grand Circuit meeting in 1898 , Fort Erie resident W.J. Stockdale approached Bertie Township Council to propose a by-law (under the act relating to public morals) that would prohibit horse racing of any kind in the Township of Bertie.
In response to Mr. Stockdale’s proposed legislation, Samuel Johnston, a local businessman, contractor and horseman, presented a petition to
Bertie Council on November 5, 1898, signed by himself and 270 Bertie ratepayers and residents,
in which he noted rather forcefully that the
prohibition of horse racing at Fort Erie would
have serious economic consequences for the investors in the Fort Erie Jockey Club, the newly formed racing association, and the tax base of
the township. Eventually, both Council and Mr. Stockdale recognized the merits of Johnston’s argument, and acknowledged the public support for the continuation of racing that the petition signatures represented. Mr. Stockdale is duly noted in Council’s records as having withdrawn his notice regarding the proposed by-law to prohibit horse racing in Bertie Township:
“It is quite likely that the political insight and perseverance of Samuel Johnston in this matter allowed for the growth and development of a de ning industry for nearly a century”-Allan G. Felstead, Ph D.
Samuel Johnston was recognized and honoured
by the Canadian horse racing community for
saving horse racing at Fort Erie Racetrack, which
is Canada’s longest operating racing facility, when
he was enshrined an honoured member in the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in the Legends/ Builder Category in 2013. There he joined captains of industry like R. Samuel (Sam) McLaughlin, E.P. Taylor, J. Louis Levesque, Eugene Melnyk, Frank Stronach, Charles Juravinski and Honourable Earl Rowe, former Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Ontario.
Thoroughbred Highlight - Page 16 - August 2019