HORSE RACING : Deep in the Heart of a Whole Different Racetrack World

As the steel framework of Sam Houston Race Park was being erected, the management of Texas’ first major league track was making plans to advertise and sell boxes and luxury suites. This wasn’t necessary. Before it could even print the brochures, the track was deluged with inquiries and requests, and it sold all 19 of the suites, at prices from $45,000 to $65,000 a season, with a minimum three-year lease. The boxes, priced at an average of $10,000 a season, sold out too.

When he observed this response, General Manager Jim Murphy was astonished. He had come to Houston from Maryland’s Rosecroft Raceway, and had previously operated Atlantic City Race Track, and in those oversatured markets it is a constant struggle for racetracks to attract customers. But Texas is a whole different world.

“People have been waiting for years for horses to come here,� Murphy said. “There’s a lot of pent-up demand. Racing hasn’t experienced anything like this in a long time.�

In fact, there is so much enthusiasm for the sport that some people with Texas-size optimism think their state could one day challenge California as the nation’s No. 1 racing center.

Sam Houston Park is scheduled to open April 29, and a full-fledged state racing circuit will exist when tracks in Dallas and San Antonio begin operating in 1995. But the immense possibilities of Texas racing have been evident for decades--even before parimutuel wagering was legalized.

Horses have always been an integral part of the state’s history and culture. Texas ranks fourth in the nation in the production of thoroughbred foals, and tbe state is the home of many of the country’s most prominent horse owners. Texans like to gamble too.

“This state is like Kentucky,� Murphy said. “Here, betting the horses is not something you have to apologize for.�

In order to play the horses, Texans were forced to travel to neighboring states, and their money fueled the prosperity of Oaklawn Park in Arkansas, Remington Park in Oklahoma and Louisiana Downs.

Texas finally legalized parimutuel betting in 1987, but the tax on wagering was set so high that there was no way for a prospective investor to build an expensive track and hope to make a profit. Two minor tracks, Trinity Meadows and Bandera Downs, did open, and they generated respectable business despite their primitive facilities. When the state’s tax laws were changed, however, groups of investors moved rapidly to develop tracks in three cities.

Political infighting and lawsuits delayed the opening of the biggest market, Dallas, enabling Houston to break out of the starting gate first. The $85 million Sam Houston Park is fairly modest in size, but it is going to be a first-class facility.

“When I walked through it,� said Steve Davidowitz, turf writer for the Houston Post, “I kept thinking ‘That’s smart’ or ‘That looks good’ whenever I looked around. There’s a video-replay library and plenty of table spaces for horseplayers. There are groups of television monitors that show the races, replays and odds, and they’re set up so you can see them when you approach the betting windows.�

But Sam Houston Park will have an even more important enticement for bettors: It will have horses in abundance. Racetracks from coast to coast have been plagued by a thoroughbred shortage that makes their races unattractive as betting propositions.

But so many owners and trainers are eager to race in Texas that the Houston track’s racing secretary had the luxury of sifting through 4,500 applications for the 1,200 available stall spaces.

The quality of the horses in Texas is almost certain to become stronger in the coming years. Jeff Hooper, executive director of the Texas Thoroughbred Breeders Assn., said people in the state are already responding to the vision of a prosperous state racing circuit. “People are putting money back into the game and buying higher-quality mares,� he said. “Among breeders, the enthusiasm level is now at an all-time high.�

It is the prospect of a Texas racing circuit that gives the sport its most exciting possibilities. If the three major tracks can agree on a racing schedule (which, so far, they haven’t), they can operate virtually year round, with each track simulcasting to the other two.

And when Texas legalizes off-track betting (which hasn’t happened yet but is seen as inevitable), the possibilities are almost unlimited. Murphy cites this statistic: There are 21 cities that have populations of more than 100,000 and which are more than an hour away from one of Texas’s three major tracks. This is the reason that one state racing official said that “when God invented OTB, he had Texas in mind.�

Skeptics may note that the opening of a new track is always accompanied by a flush of optimism--and that it is often followed by a confrontation with harsh economic reality. The last two big tracks built in this country, Canterbury Downs and Birmingham, both launched their operations amid much fanfare, and both eventually went broke. Even so, Texas’ situation is so unique it seems almost certain that April 29, 1994, opening day at Sam Houston Race Park, will mark the start of an important new era in the sport.