KINGSTON, Jamaica - EXECUTIVE chairman of Supreme Ventures Racing and Entertainment Limited (SVREL) Solomon Sharpe says the resignation of Lorna Gooden in the capacity of general manager will have a huge impact on the promoting company for local horse racing.
Her departure, he said, will leave a void not only on the administrative side, but on the sport at large.
Gooden made the transition from the parent company of SVREL, Supreme Ventures Limited (SVL), in early 2019 when she was appointed as general manager.
One of her main achievements was to guide horse racing and create among the many stakeholders a united front of cooperation through the tumultuous and unsettling period of the novel coronavirus pandemic. During the pandemic racing was suspended for three and a half months in 2020, plus there were several weekend lockdown phases from 2020 to the end of 2021.
Gooden’s resignation takes effect in January 2023.
“I met Lorna Gooden in 2019 when I took over as the board chairman as she came on board to be my general manager. Gooden has done a great service; she has done 21 years of human service to the Supreme Ventures Group and we want to thank her for doing that. She is a very ambitious lady. She is currently in law school and looking at some future endeavours, and we wish her well,” Sharpe said.
“It [her resignation] is going to impact as she has come here and made a big impact. Remember, she was a pivotal player when we had to come out of COVID-19 and the lockdown of operations, managing the whole lockdowns with the different parameters we had to work within — and she did well.
“We are going to miss her, as she is a key part of the team, and so we just have to regroup as a team and take it a step forward. Again, everybody is ambitious and wants to move on and we are doing bigger and better things, and we support her 100 per cent in her future,” the chairman added.
Sharpe also said there are no immediate plans to replace Gooden.
“...We have to sit down and have a meeting with my board; we have to constantly look at the direction and the redirection. We are here today [Monday] celebrating the whole solar plan which is a part of the further development of the entire 200 acres here.
“So we have to look and see where we are now, where we are going to be in five years, where we are going to be in 10 years, where we are going to be in 20 years — and so there are no immediate plans. We will take it day by day as we have her until January next year, and so we will keep moving,” Sharpe affirmed.
