Horse Racing Tries to Keep Clientele From Fading in the Stretch

There was a time when all Ruidoso Downs needed to turn a profit was a summer weekend, fast horses, and bumper-to-bumper Cadillacs and pickup trucks with Texas license plates.

That’s when the cozy track in the Sacramento Mountains about 180 miles south of Albuquerque didn’t have to compete with slot machines, blackjack tables, lottery tickets and Texas horse racing.

But like a growing number of tracks across America, Ruidoso Downs is losing ground in the frenzied competition for gambling dollars.

Riverboat casinos continue to put a dent in attendance and betting at tracks from Chicago to New Orleans, and the mushrooming trend of casinos operated by American Indian tribes is further eroding horse racing’s clientele from coast to coast.

Since 1990, 12 tracks have closed, most of them small operations such as Will Rogers Downs in Claremore, Okla., Broken Bow in Nebraska and Sweetwater Downs in Rock Springs, Wyo.

But larger tracks also are getting squeezed.

Longacres in Seattle closed in 1992 and the site is now used by Boeing Co. as a training center for pilots. Jefferson Downs, the third largest track in Louisiana, also closed that year after two decades of racing.

And in Florida, the head of struggling Hialeah Park wants the state to purchase the 69-year-old track and two others in South Florida--Gulfstream Park and Calder Race Course--and consolidate them.

“Very simply, we have three tracks within 10 to 15 miles of one another,” said John Brunetti Sr. “It saturates the market.”

There were 126 thoroughbred tracks in operation across the country in 1994, according to the Association of Racing Commissioners. Many of those also offered racing by quarter horses and other breeds such as Arabians and Appaloosas.

Ruidoso Downs, home of the world’s richest quarter horse race, lost $1.6 million last year when its handle--the amount of money bet--dropped almost 26%. The biggest hits came from the opening of parimutuel racing in Texas in recent years and a casino on the neighboring Mescalero Apache reservation that offers everything from video machines to card games.

Texans who traditionally have spent the summer in Ruidoso playing the horses, now can do their betting closer to home at tracks like Trinity Meadows in Fort Worth, Sam Houston in Houston and Retama Park in San Antonio.

Those tracks, however, also face problems.

Sam Houston opened in April 1994 and struggled almost immediately. Last month it filed for bankruptcy protection and announced a multimillion-dollar deal to restructure its $75 million debt.

Retama Park near San Antonio opened its inaugural meet April 7 with almost 30,000 fans betting $705,712. Three weeks later, those figures were down to 5,642 fans and a handle of just over $370,000.

In the past month, the track cut back its racing days from five to four each week, experimenting first with a Wednesday through Saturday schedule, then Thursday through Sunday. It also has cut purses twice in the same period, by 12 to 20%.

“The decision to make these changes is a safety measure to ensure the future stability and success of racing at Retama Park and in Texas,” said track president Bob Quigley.

Bandera, a smaller Texas track located 60 miles northwest of San Antonio, also is struggling. The track’s daily handle in 1994 averaged $207,135, but through April, the average was $108,297. Bandera cut back on its racing, eliminating Friday programs, so it now runs Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.

With Retama Park’s opening and fewer horses to go around, Trinity Meadows cut back from 207 race days in 1994 to 142 this year. Through its first 37 days of racing this spring, Trinity’s on-track average daily handle was $178,000, compared to $250,032 last year.

In New Mexico, the most enduring threat comes from Indian-run casinos.

“They are using our clientele, which in Ruidoso’s case, has been built over 50 years. It’s a case of the parasite killing the host,” says Scott Wells, Ruidoso Downs’ general manager.

R.D. Hubbard, the track’s owner, has threatened to close the operation if the state doesn’t allow tracks to expand their gambling operations.

This year, lawmakers approved a state-run lottery, but adjourned without acting on a bill that would allow the state’s four racetracks to install video gaming machines. The issue is certain to be revived in January.

Video gaming machines have been critical to the survival of tracks such as the Fair Grounds in New Orleans and Prairie Meadows in Altoona, Iowa.

Hollywood Park, which annually runs one of the nation’s most successful meets, also has turned to casino gaming to strengthen its economic base. After opening a casino last year adjacent to the track, Hollywood Park had a record average daily average of $8.3 million during its fall meet.

Prairie Meadows reported earnings of $11 million in April after it installed 1,100 gaming machines and daily attendance at the track increased to more than 10,600.

At the Fair Grounds--the third-oldest track in the country behind Saratoga and Pimlico--machines and simulcasting have enabled the track to offset much of the losses it took when riverboat casinos opened along the Mississippi River.

By simulcasting its races to other tracks and off-track betting parlors in other states, the Fair Grounds has found a major source of revenue.

“Our out-of-state business has gone from $3 million in 1992 to a little over $90 million,” said Bryan Krantz, the track’s president and general manager. “We’ve had phenomenal growth.”

Simulcasting also has helped New Mexico tracks stay in business. Santa Fe Racing Inc., which runs a winter meet in Albuquerque and a summer meet in Santa Fe, went to seven days of simulcasting this year, picking up tracks from Philadelphia to California.

So did Sunland Park, the track near the Texas-New Mexico border that saw its on-track handle drop by more than 15% this year.

Ruidoso Downs, which opened its summer meet last month, will simulcast its races to Mexico and parts of Central America this year. The track also will pick up daily incoming simulcasting signals from tracks on the East Coast such as Belmont and Saratoga to Retama Park in Texas and Hollywood Park and Los Alamitos in California.