Timeline: Hastings closes with history of politics ... and horses

There was an odd juxtaposition of celebration and melancholy Friday in Vancouver.

Just before lunch, the 48-team draw was completed in Washington D.C. for soccer’s World Cup being held in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. next summer. BC Place in Vancouver is one of the 16 host stadiums.

Right after lunch, Great Canadian Entertainment quietly announced in a written statement that it would not run horses anymore at Hastings Racecourse. The track, the oldest continuously operating sports venue in the city, is just three miles from 42-year-old BC Place.

After 133 years, Hastings has hosted its last race.

The handwriting was on the news release only one week after the British Columbia provincial government said it would stop subsidizing the track with slot-machine money from its next-door casino anymore. It also came on the heels of the property being sold to the Tsleil-Waututh tribal nation.

Just to bring the story full circle, The Province newspaper reported Saturday that Major League Soccer’s Vancouver Whitecaps are about to get an exclusive negotiating period with the city to build a new stadium at Hastings. The team, which has been for sale for a year, tipped its hand during the spring that it was looking at the racetrack and the surrounding Pacific National Exhibition fairgrounds to build a new home. Right now the Whitecaps play, believe it or not, at BC Place.

Unless there is a Hail Mary in the playbook, 133 years of racing at Hastings are over. The history of the track is rich in tales, many of which would not necessarily be found in a media guide. The highs and the lows are detailed in this timeline compiled from existing compilations and contemporaneous reporting. Photos are from the city of Vancouver archive via Eric Brighton’s Old Vancouver BC page on Facebook.

1888. A 160-acre plot of land called East Park was established by the Vancouver city council in the New Brighton neighborhood “for the use, recreation and enjoyment of the public.” The area was moneyed thanks to its popular hotel with beautiful scenery.

1890. The city council was asked by a small group of people to carve out 16 acres in East Park for a horse track on a site used at the time for annual livestock sales. Racing had outgrown the informal competitions held downtown near the original Hotel Vancouver.

Sept. 15, 1892. The first race was run on the half-mile dirt course that opened in East Park on land leased to the aristocratic new British Columbia Jockey Club. It might have cost more money to get to the new track than to bet there. It would be another decade before street cars went to the park. Carriage rides on rough roads or, for the wealthy, chartered boats provided ingress and egress. Horses literally were shipped on steamers across the Strait of Georgia from the port in Victoria.

1907. The Vancouver Exhibition Association was established with a goal to start a big summer fair. The BCJC was against it, and so was the city council.

1908. Voters rejected a call by the VEA for $25,000 in tax money to finance the proposed fair.

1909. The city council gave in and granted the VEA a five-year lease.

Aug. 15, 1910. The first Pacific National Exhibition opened. The track on the property was known popularly as Exhibition Park, and it would carry that name for 83 years.

Aug. 4, 1914. As part of the British Empire, Canada was drawn into World War I. Exhibition Park was used for military training, but the races went on, and so did the new fair.

Jan. 15, 1922. A Vancouver Sun editorial was decidedly anti-racing. “Those knights of the itching palm who have specialized in horse racing as the method whereby the fool and his money can be most easily parted are preparing for their seasonal invasion of Vancouver this coming summer,” it said. “Open racetracks bring to the city a horde of unmoral men and immoral women intent on getting money without work and not caring to what extent they contaminate the crowds who are attracted to the races.”

Jan. 24, 1922. The Vancouver city council rejected a formal request to terminate the VEA’s lease at Exhibition Park.

Sept. 8, 1924. A jockey identified as C. Thompson was kicked out of Exhibition Park. Daily Racing Form reported it was “for undertaking to fix a race.”

1926. The PNE grounds were established permanently in East Park. HappyLand, which is now Playland, was opened near the track. The fairgrounds, the amusement park and the track made the whole area the place to be in Vancouver.

July 1, 1939. Exhibition Park became the first track to use an electric starting gate. Clay Puett of Texas invented it. He was there that Saturday afternoon to push the button that opened the 12 stalls for the 5 1/2-furlong race. The gate was hauled on and off the muddy track by draft horses. It attracted scores of fans who abandoned their grandstand seats to see the new contraption up close.

1942. Formally involved in World War II for more than two years, Canada ordered citizens of Japanese descent to be interned. Part of the Exhibition Park property was converted into a way station for thousands of them. Some were assigned living space near the track in the livestock pavilions built for farm animals. Others were dispatched to camps across the country. Their cars and trucks were confiscated and parked on the track infield before they were auctioned out from under their rightful owners. As the war continued, so did racing. Because of gas rationing, rival meets at nearby Lansdowne Park and Brighouse were moved to Exhibition Park. Brighouse never reopened, and that property was turned into a community sports complex.

March 6, 1948. The Giant Dipper rollercoaster was torn down to make room for expansion of the track. In the coming years the original half-mile oval was spun about 15 degrees counterclockwise and lengthened to five furlongs, which remained its circumference for the next seven decades.

Aug. 18, 1953. Richard Rossall, a 17-year-old jockey from California, was given a lifetime suspension by stewards at Exhibition Park. He said he was innocent after being cited for “an unsatisfactory ride” on Valley Band. Stewards said Rossall “pulled” the betting favorite to finish second in the seventh race that Tuesday. Rossall’s mother was a successful rodeo rider who also competed in races written only for female jockeys.

July 30, 1954. The 25,000-seat Empire Stadium on the southeast corner of the BNE property opened for the British Empire and Commonwealth Games. Eight days later Roger Bannister defeated John Landy in what became known as the Miracle Mile.

Aug. 17, 1960. Lansdowne Park in nearby Richmond, British Columbia, ran its last race. Lansdowne Centre shopping mall was built there in 1977. It is expected to be torn down in 2026 to make way for residential and commercial towers.

1963. British Columbia-bred George Royal began his Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame career by winning four of his first eight starts as a 2-year-old racing at Exhibition Park. Owned by trainer Robert Hall and Ernie Hammond, the bay colt put together a nine-race winning streak in 1964 that included the British Columbia Derby. George Royal went on to be named Canada’s horse of the year in 1965. That season and again in 1966, he won both the Canadian International at Woodbine and the San Juan Capistrano Handicap at Santa Anita. That final race marked the last of jockey Johnny Longden’s 6,032 wins. George Royal was retired with 21 victories from 45 starts and earnings of $323,693, which would be about $3 million in 2025 money. He was honored with a statue that still stands in the Hastings Park paddock.

1965. A new 5,000-seat grandstand was completed on the southwest side of the track.

Aug. 16, 1965. Inducted seven years earlier in the Hall of Fame in the U.S., Longden was 58 when he rode Prince Scorpion to victory at Exhibition Park. It was his 6,000th win, extending his world record at the time. The John Longden 6,000 Handicap was established in his honor at Hastings in 2004.

1968. During the first year of night racing at Exhibition Park, Frank Barroby started riding there. One of 12 siblings in his family, Barroby was the track’s leading jockey that year with 91 wins. While maintaining a successful profile for years in Vancouver, he also became the first jockey to win riding titles in four provinces. Barroby retired in 1976 to an even more distinguished training career that led him to the Canada hall of fame.

1976. A grandstand extension was completed to give the track’s spectator area most of its current look.

April 9, 1984. Chris Loseth, a native of British Columbia, won eight races from 10 starts on the Monday night card. He tied the recognized world record at the time for the most riding wins on Thoroughbreds in one day. Loseth was an eight-time riding champion who won 3,668 races at Hastings in a career that spanned 1974-2005. He was inducted into the Canada hall of fame in 2007.

Jan. 1, 1993. The Pacific Racing Association, a non-profit organization, took over the track from the British Columbia Jockey Club. It signed a new lease with the city of Vancouver to race at Exhibition Park, which was renamed Hastings Park.

April 17, 1993. In memory of the Japanese Canadians who were interned at Exhibition Park during World War II, the Momiji Garden on the southwest corner of the park property was opened. Shinto priests blessed the site during a dedication ceremony. Half the money to build the garden was contributed by the Japanese Canadian Redress Foundation.

April 30, 2002. After two years of haggling, Woodbine Entertainment Group finally bought Hastings Park from the Pacific Racing Association. Right away seven employees were fired including three at the senior level. Woodbine CEO David Willmot was confident a downturn in the local racing business could be reversed. He said the new owners would “build upon the breeding and racing heritage in the province and turn horse racing into a major-league sporting and entertainment activity.”

April 8, 2004. The Woodbine era did not last long. Great Canadian Entertainment and Wall Financial bought Hastings Park from the city of Vancouver, which three months earlier took over the track. The deal was worth US$20.1 million deal to Woodbine. BloodHorse reported $8.9 million was for ownership of Hastings Entertainment and $11.2 million for debt and other liabilities. The deal included licenses to seven simulcast betting centers around the Vancouver area. GCE agreed to continue leasing the track’s land from the city.

Aug. 18, 2006. Ruling against East Vancouver residents who were concerned about potential crime, the British Columbia Supreme Court gave the go-ahead for the building of a casino at Hastings. The ruling ended a two-year fight that began when the Vancouver city council controversially authorized 600 slot machines for the track after four days of contentious hearings.

Aug. 15, 2008. Built in part of the existing grandstand, a 42,000-square-foot casino was opened at Hastings. The new facility quadrupled the 150 slot machines that had been operating since November in a temporary location at the track.

July 2, 2012. A statue of jockey Mario Gutiérrez was unveiled at Hastings. A native of Mexico, Gutiérrez won riding titles at Hastings in 2007 and 2008. He went on to win the Kentucky Derby and Preakness with I’ll Have Another and the 2016 Derby with Nyquist.

July 20, 2012. Amid talk of a possible closure, GCE renewed its lease with the city of Vancouver to run races at Hastings Park. The two-year extension was the first of a series of patching leases, the last of which was set to expire in 2026.

Aug. 6, 2012. Touching Promise, a 2-year-old by Touch Gold, finished eighth in the British Cup Debutante Stakes. It was a modest beginning for the filly bred and owned by Canadian hall-of-famers Russ and Lois Bennett and trained by Barbara Heads. Touching Promise fashioned past performances that included consecutive wins in the Grade 3 Ballerina Stakes in 2014 and 2015. Making all but three of her starts at Hastings, she was retired in 2018 with a record of 41: 9-4-11 and US$380,578 in earnings.

May 4, 2013. Popular jockey Frank Fuentes, 53, finished first on Go for Guinness for the 1,500th win of his career. It came the same day as Orb won south of the border in the Kentucky Derby. Fuentes’s family was at Hastings for a celebration ceremony five days later, but an unspecified gift from the track management was not. It was said that Fuentes, a native of Mexico, caught everyone off guard by getting to the milestone so fast that year.

July 18, 2015. Square Dancer, a 5-year-old gelding who had knocked around racetracks in five U.S. states, made a winning debut at Hastings. He would go on to win two black-type stakes that summer on his way to becoming the British Columbia horse of the year. Square Dancer was trained and finally owned by husband and wife Steve and Lorie Henson. He would make 42 starts at Hastings and win eight times before he was retired in 2021 at age 11.

April 4, 2025. The Vancouver Whitecaps of Major League Soccer announced they were looking at the Pacific National Exhibition grounds as a possible site for a new stadium.

Aug. 15, 2025. GCE said it would not offer harness racing anymore at Fraser Downs, 18 miles southeast of Hastings. The track had hosted standardbred racing since 1976 in Surrey, where the city council said it was terminating GCE’s lease at Cloverdale Fairgrounds. The track had an off-season closure that spring because of a rat infestation. A new hospital is the centerpiece of a development planned for the 12-acre site.

Oct. 5, 2025. The US$33,519 Fall Classic Handicap was abandoned when jockey Amadeo Pérez was dismounted and could not be moved before the horses passed that part of the track a second time. When the race was rescheduled 13 days later, 6-year-old gelding Stormy Blue won it. He was the last stakes winner at Hastings.

Oct. 18, 2025. On a crisp, rainy Saturday evening, Indyetta carried 5-2 favoritism to a neck victory in the 10th race, a 6 1/2-furlong, US$10,074 claiming sprint for fillies and mares. Owned by BFA Holdings, trained by Cindy Krasner and ridden by Kerron Khelawan, the 5-year-old chestnut by Numaany was in for a US$3,565 tag but was not claimed. No one knew with certainty at the time, but it turned out Indyetta was the last winner of a race at Hastings.

June 10, 2025. The Tsleil-Waututh Nation announced its plan to buy Hastings from GCE. “We’re thrilled to take another important step towards economic self-determination for our nation in our traditional territory,” tribe president Jen Thomas said. “We believe this opportunity is historic for us in many ways. We look forward to entering the gaming industry in due course.”

Nov. 13, 2025. Tsleil-Waututh finalized its deal to buy the casino and the track property but not the racing operation, virtually confirming its intent to stay out of the Thoroughbred business.

Nov. 25, 2025. In a letter to racing executives, British Columbia solicitor general Nina Krieger said Hastings would not get any more slot-machine money. The cutoff of as much as US$7 million a year was due to take effect Jan. 31. “Even with significant and ongoing government investment from casino-generated revenue,” Krieger said, “the (racing) industry is not sustainable.” The province’s projected US$8 billion budget deficit was another reason cited for the decision.

Dec. 5, 2025. Great Canadian Entertainment announced Hastings would not host races anymore. “Unfortunately,” GCE regional vice president Wayne Odegard said, “this is strictly a business decision based on a lack of economic feasibility to move forward with another season of horse racing at Hastings.”

Dec. 6, 2025. According to The Province newspaper, the Whitecaps were negotiating to build a new soccer-specific stadium at Hastings. The team and the city reportedly are close to an agreement that would give the Whitecaps an exclusive negotiating window to put together a building plan and find business partners who also would develop the racetrack site. Tsleil-Waututh reportedly could be a leading partner.

Still standing at the site, there is a plaque that commemorates the long history of the track. The last sentence says, “Today some regular visitors come just for the smell of hay, the sound of hooves, friendly employees, a play area for kids, and drive-in movies in the summer.”