Fraser Downs in Cloverdale has been in the news this past week as Great Canadian Gaming announced it’s cutting a dozen days out of this year’s harness racing season.

The move isn’t popular with many who work at the track, the grooms, drivers and others who depend on Fraser Downs for their living. Those backstretch people have told us what they fear the reduced season could mean. Great Canadian has told us why they believe the cuts are necessary.

So has the head of a committee formed to re-jig the ailing harness racing industry in an attempt to save it from obilivion.

The only voice missing from the discussion is that of Chuck Keeling, whose family sold Fraser Downs to Great Canadian back in 2004 for a cool $40 million.

Keeling was Fraser Down’s general manager and point man as the track aggressively lobbied Victoria and the city for the right to run slots on the premises.

Throughout the 18 months it took to get all the approvals needed to open a casino at Fraser Downs, Keeling’s message never varied: We need the cash slot machines will generate to save harness racing at Fraser Downs.

A casino with slot machines will pull in the crowds and the cash they drop can be used to boost purses at the track to draw the top horses and drivers we can’t get now.

That was Keeling’s mantra: With slots, we’re good, without slots, we’re dead. And he was persuasive. He got city council on board. He got local business on board. He got the public on board. He got slots.

It took two years of lobbying to get it done, but in December 2004, the doors opened and the first gamblers walked in.

Several times during those two years, Keeling was asked if Fraser Downs would go on the block if a casino and slots were allowed there. Each time Keeling said it wouldn’t happen.

In November 2003, when Keeling reached a tentative agreement with the city on a long-term lease, he said, “We are not selling. We are not for sale.”

In December 2003, when council approved the casino and slots at Fraser Downs, Keeling said, “We’ve been here 27 years and we’re looking forward to being here another 27 years.”

Forty-nine days after the casino opened, we were told Fraser Downs had been sold.

That’s two promises Keeling made that haven’t been kept. The slots haven’t improved things for the racers and Fraser Downs was for sale after all.

The Now tried a number of times to talk to Keeling. We had some questions about all this, but he declined to comment, referring us to Great Canadian’s media man, Howard Blank, instead. Blank gave us some useful information.

Still, it would have been good to hear what Keeling had to say. We wanted it from the horse’s mouth, you see.

• This is one in a series of related stories you can find in our online edition about this issue.