This letter to the editor in the Hamulton Spectator explains how the Ontario budget has effectively put an end to horse racing and horse breeding in Ontario: The recent provincial budget has moved the Ontario horse racing industry into history. The revenue sharing agreement with the slots at the tracks will end, so goodbye horses. This is no small potatoes. The move will have significant effects on the race industry and rural communities. Suddenly there is no work for Ontario horses. Breeding farms have three years worth of investment in horse stock — spring foals, fall yearlings, and pregnant mares to continue the cycle. Now all of these horses, over night, have switched from being an asset to a liability. This will bring financial ruin to most breeding farms across the province and for those who supply or are employed by the horse industry. The horse racing sector currently adds 60,000 jobs to Ontario’s rural economy. The racing expenditures for feed, supplies and services exceed $2 billion annually. The governments take their cut. Without consultation the budget ended all this. In 2008, the Quebec government closed racetracks in that province. The outcome was mass slaughter of horses.