NMRC Debates Moving Ruidoso T-Bred Races to Albuquerque

Ruidoso Downs has continuously drawn the short straw over the last two weeks. It was spared by wildfires that prompted an evacuation of horses from the track June 18, but is now suffering damage from flood waters and debris that have run unopposed by vegetation thanks to the burn scar.

On June 29, the six-furlong chute and backstretch of Ruidoso’s Thoroughbred track flooded. At first, it was thought only a day of racing would be missed as crews quickly began repair efforts, but continued flooding on June 30 has left the whole meet in question.

“We were almost ready to put the cushion back on the track and the flood came again,” Ruidoso general manager Rick Baugh said. “That was worse than the first day. We were able to save the majority of the racetrack, with the exception of the six-furlong chute.”

With the safety of the track in question, and concern from horsemen and horsewomen about their livelihoods, the New Mexico Racing Commission held an emergency meeting July 2 to discuss which path to take as the state’s racing has hit a crossroads.

The main plan proposed by the NMRC, which was later emphasized as the way to go by horsemen in the public comment section of the meeting, was moving Thoroughbred racing to The Downs at Albuquerque. Ruidoso’s meet was scheduled to end Sept. 2, while Albuquerque’s meet starts Aug. 29. The proposal would call for an early opening of Albuquerque to accommodate for the loss of racing at Ruidoso.

“This is an industry problem, not just a Ruidoso problem,” said NMRC vice chairman David Sanchez. “We (the NMRC) are in charge of this industry. Let’s try to get it going and keep it going.”

Ruidoso’s Quarter Horse track was relatively unimpacted by the flooding, except for a portion where the horses pull up after the race on the clubhouse turn where the straightaway joins the Thoroughbred track.

“As we speak, we’re completing the base course for the (clubhouse) turn to get the cushion back on the track,” Baugh told the Commission.

The Thoroughbred track, however, is in much worse shape as the six-furlong chute, where many of the races begin, is filled with contaminants.

“If we can get some cooperation from Mother Nature, I would say two weeks,” Baugh said of the timeline to run Thoroughbreds at Ruidoso. “We’re going to have to go down to the base of the six-furlong chute and get all that off.”

The commissioners expressed concern over relying on Mother Nature to cooperate, especially as the area is entering monsoon season.

“It’s impractical to think you can put a racetrack surface back down when you’re battling those monsoons,” Baugh said. “We’re experiencing things that this area has never seen before.”

Horsemen have been voicing their concerns about having somewhere not just to race their horses, but also to train them. Baugh said he would advise against working horses on Ruidoso’s Thoroughbred track at the moment, and the NMRC wants to see what consistency results come out of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority’s Safety and Testing Laboratory’s study.

“I think that’s a concern with all involved to assure that the base has a lot of integrity in it, so we’ll wait for that,” said NMRC executive director Izzy Trejo. “They’ll give us industry standards, all tracks are different. I think if we saw a great variance in the readings, a layman can say that this track is not consistent.”

“The biggest thing I hear from our trainers is the lack of training days,” said Thoroughbred owner Phil Sanchez. “Because they’re athletes, and they can’t exercise, then you run into a risk with being injured.”

He went on to remind the board that not having a recorded workout for a long period of time is a red flag for HISA, causing more paperwork and stress for owners down the line.

“It’s horses that we’re concerned about. We raise our own babies,” another horseman said. “We don’t want to send one down, get it on the track, and then have a failure right there. It’s too much at stake all the way around.”

Commissioner John Buffington said he already had concerns over the number of Thoroughbred races being held at Ruidoso over its meet and that the situation is only worse given their inability to use the track.

“We need to do something to help the Thoroughbred group, and assumptions were that Quarter Horses were going to be ready to run sooner,” he said.

Officials from Albuquerque said they would look into what they would need to start the meet and would get back to the NMRC by July 5.

With the idea of racing Quarter Horses at Ruidoso and Thoroughbreds simultaneously at Albuquerque, commissioner Billy Smith expressed concerns over staffing.

“The gate crew, all the stewards,” Smith said, “all the people that go to Ruidoso go to each track, most of them. How are we going to staff two tracks?”

Sanchez rebutted, “We have in the past. This is an emergency thing here, so we got to look at it like an emergency.”

New Mexico Horse Breeders Association president Jay Taylor later proposed an idea to race Friday and Saturday at one track and Sunday and Monday at the other to help with staffing. He also expressed the importance of maintaining Quarter Horse racing at Ruidoso to help aid crowd sizes for their sale. Trejo also voiced the Commission’s commitment to staffing the meet.

“If that plan was to be put in place, this agency would do whatever it could to staff another race meet at another location,” Trejo said. “Yes, it would be difficult, but we have the utilization, through our roles of utilizing substitute stewards.”

However, getting a meet together at Albuquerque could take a few weeks and cost the track about $35,000 a day to run, something they were not previously budgeted to spend. The expenses of this meet will need to be worked out among Ruidoso, Albuquerque, and the NMRC.

“If Mother Nature cooperates, I think (Ruidoso) can be back in business quicker than we can put everybody through these hoops,” Baugh said.

However, the commission and industry stakeholders are leery to move forward without a plan B.

“We don’t know what Mother Nature is going to do,” Sanchez said. “If she comes in next week and floods (Ruidoso) out again, then we’re back to step one. We know that Albuquerque is not going to flood out.

“This is an emergency here. At least for Thoroughbred people, they need to run. They can’t sit back and do nothing. … I think we have to be prepared and at least try to get this Albuquerque thing going.”