21st October - Judith Glynn and the Quinte Exhibition Raceway (QER)

[Nick]

One of Judith Glynn's loves and the research topic for her M.Sc. at
the University of Guelph is the horseracing industry. Currently she
is the Director of Grants at the Ontario Problem Gambling Research
Centre.
In this talk she will be speaking to the results of the research that
she and a small team of researchers undertook in the last two years –
a detailed review of local newspaper accounts of the Belleville
racetrack over a 150-year period.
Judith's study focused on one of the last Canadian communities to
make this transition, Belleville, with a racetrack born with the
city almost two centuries ago.
The research has drawn on the Belleville Intelligencer archives
which, since 1834, have reported on the activities of the QER. The
voices of the editors and reporters of their day reveal the role the
QER has played in the community. Articles illustrate how the QER
embraced and responded to the larger social changes that define its
history and that of every rural community on the continent, the shift
from rural to urban, from agricultural to industrial.
The talk promises to be a fascinating window into the history of one
of Belleville's most well known venues. A world in transition as
across North America local agricultural societies, which have hosted
horseracing and agricultural fairs since the early 1800's, are
responding to a 40-year decline in the popularity of horseracing by
closing altogether or becoming modernized hosts to the more lucrative
form of gambling, slot machines..
Judith's knowledge of gambling is extensive, spanning her current
role and her previous role as Ontario Government spokesperson on
gaming expansion. Judith held other senior management positions in
the Ontario Public Service, following several years as a political
advisor in the David Peterson government.