Reviving Nebraska horse racing? More horses, bigger purses, full racing season are key

Only a month and a half old, she pumped her legs gracefully down the stretch and into the turn on the indoor track at Judy Pryor’s horse-breeding ranch north of Omaha.

At her breakneck pace, however, the little filly ran wide on the turn and headed for a collision with the arena fence.

She slammed on the brakes, bracing her long legs against the ground, kicking up dust and sliding awkwardly into a blue water tub, sloshing a wave into the fence.

For a moment, her big bright eyes flashed a look as if to say: “I’m fine, Mom.”

Judy Pryor, 75, looked on fondly.

“She’s got fire, some piss and vinegar,” Pryor said.

The same might be said for Judy.

Nebraska horse owners and breeders are attempting a task some people consider a long shot: Rebuilding Nebraska’s once-vibrant horse racing industry.

Horse racing slumped with the closure of Omaha’s nationally known Ak-Sar-Ben racetrack nearly 30 years ago. While Nebraska still has as many Thoroughbred tracks as Kentucky, the Nebraska tracks collectively are holding fewer than one-third as many live race days as they did five decades ago.

But hope is rising among those who remember the glory days. They are buoyed by the 2020 passage of a trio of ballot initiatives that authorized casinos — if paired with racetracks. As a result, Ho-Chunk Inc., Caesars Entertainment and Elite Casino Resorts are partnering with racetrack license holders to invest millions of dollars into those casino-racetracks.

New tracks already are under construction and opening to meet state requirements for casino operators. More foals are being born. And enthusiasm is building as the first so-called racinos open their doors.

The goal is to create a statewide circuit of Thoroughbred racetracks that together provide near seamless racing from late winter through fall. As racing grows, advocates say, so too will the opportunities for alfalfa and hay farmers, feed stores, horseshoers, veterinarians, concessionaires and all the workers needed to support an industry.

The plan is a gamble, against a national backdrop of track closures, animal rights criticism and a shrinking industry. 

But gamblers are optimists.

One crucial requirement will be finding enough horses. For now, the little filly at Pryor Ranch belongs to a club with meager membership.

Pryor spent a lifetime around horses, growing up on a family dairy farm four miles south of the ranch. She reads horses the way a football coach reads a quarterback, studying a player’s footwork, throwing motion and posture.

In the filly’s slim athletic build and spirited attitude, Pryor sees a potential champion. Look at the crease along her loin, a sign of strong muscles. The contour of her back.

“Form to function,” Pryor said.

The walls of her ranch office are plastered with trophies and plaques from her earlier days showing and raising quarter horses. She has set her sights on a new goal.

She wants to breed a national champion.

For the past decade, she’s been breeding Thoroughbreds on her farm, acquiring stud stallions with proven winning records. Her goal is to run a Nebraska-bred racehorse in the Kentucky Derby or Kentucky Oaks — essentially the Super Bowl of racing. And she’d like to do it with a Nebraska trainer and a Nebraska jockey.

“I’m dead serious on this,” she said.

On the way to that winner’s circle, Pryor has her eye set on another goal: growing Nebraska racing.

In the arena at the ranch, her little filly leapt and played, exploring. Afterward, Pryor led her back to a stall and served her a tub of baby horse formula. The horse eagerly drank.

She is an orphan. Her mother died after giving birth.

“I’m her mom,” Pryor said.

While the state has large numbers of quarter horses, a pool large enough to produce potential racehorses, that’s not the case with Thoroughbreds.

To have enough Thoroughbreds to meet 2031 projected race days, racetracks will have to double the number of out-of-state horses currently running in the state, the Innovation Group of New Orleans said in a market study prepared for state lawmakers. Other states that enhanced their racing industry with gaming revenue have not seen gains of that magnitude, the study said.

If Nebraska managed to pull in a more likely but “optimistic” estimate of 20% more out-of-state Thoroughbreds, the state would need to nearly triple the current number of broodmares and foals produced by 2027 in order to run six horses per race, the study said. 

“Reaching these aggressive benchmarks to support racing at the existing five (Thoroughbred) tracks will be a challenge,” the group said.

Julie Larmon, a member of the Nebraska Thoroughbred Breeders Association board of directors, said a strong and successful breeding program is needed.

Registration of Nebraska-bred foals dwindled to a low of just 33 in 2019, she said, although passage of the casino law triggered an uptick. In 2023, she said there were more than 100.

Breeders expect that number to go up as Nebraska tracks implement viable and sustainable racing schedules.

“There are so many people waiting to get back into it,” Larmon said. “They’re just waiting for those tracks to finish up their building process, and there will be a lot of racing and a lot of Nebraska horses, and other horses, too.”

On a recent afternoon, silence reigned at the new racetrack under construction in Columbus.

Only a noisy bird and the occasional rumbling truck broke the quiet at the sprawling track that sits on the flat plain where the Platte and Loup rivers meet.

Dan Clarey stood by the huge new barns holding 318 stalls for racehorses, when suddenly a familiar tune blasted from his pants pocket. It was “Call to the Post,” the iconic bugle song beckoning riders to assemble at the paddock exit before a race.

It was Clarey’s phone ringtone. A caller wanted to talk about racing.

Clarey is a member of Columbus Exposition and Racing, which holds the license to the track.

In August, a bugler’s call will summon horses to the track for real. And if all goes well, people will fill the new grandstand and broad plaza surrounding it — eating, drinking, and cheering their horses.

The one-mile racetrack and grandstand are nearly finished, built beside a new Harrah’s casino. Workers are in the final stages of mixing, applying and testing the cushioning mixture on the track make it race ready.

Columbus will hold 15 race days this year: Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from Aug. 16 through Sept. 15.

While that seems like a brief season, Columbus has the second most race days in the state. Fonner Park in Grand Island has 31 days, but none of the other four licensed Nebraska tracks has more than four race days. Two have just one day all year.

The goal of Nebraska horsemen and breeders is to eventually create a statewide racing circuit that will allow racing to move from one track to another in succession throughout the year, he said.

“The whole idea is you’re trying to get a circuit back like in Ak-Sar-Ben days, when you started in Grand Island in February and you raced till October, and you never had to leave the state,” he said.

Currently, horses scatter after the last Fonner Park races in early May, he said.

“They’re going to Iowa or Minnesota or Colorado, wherever that might be,” he said.

Besides Fonner Park and Columbus, Nebraska’s tracks are Legacy Downs in Lincoln, Horsemen’s Park in Omaha, Atokad in South Sioux City and FairPlay Park in Hastings. Hastings is in the process of transferring its license to Ogallala.

In all, the Nebraska tracks are holding 54 race days this year. That’s set to increase because Nebraska law requires racetracks to hit higher targets for race days and races over time or risk losing their licenses. If the tracks close, the casinos would go, too, since the two are linked in state law.

By 2031, in general, each track must hold a minimum of 15 live race days and 120 live races annually. Fonner Park, the state’s leading track, has to hold at least 31 days, under a separate statute.

According to the marketing study prepared for the Nebraska Racing and Gaming Commission, Nebraska tracks aim to slightly exceed those targets by 2031 — although that would leave them still short of the old days. In 1975, for instance, Nebraska tracks offered 183 race days and 1,589 races, the study said.

In Columbus, hopes are high that their track — the state’s only one-mile track — will pull people in. The community isn’t new to racing, having previously run races at Ag Park, Clarey said.

“The tradition has been in Columbus for 70-plus years,” he said. “It’s a horse-racing town.”

Advocates of the industry agree on the need to increase the purses for winning horses. Just how much money the casinos chip in for purses and other support for racing is worked out in contracts between them and the tracks.

Lynne McNally is chief executive officer of the Nebraska Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, which owns Legacy Downs in Lincoln and Horsemen’s Park in Omaha.

Both tracks are paired with WarHorse casinos under construction at the sites.

“We are using our share of the revenue for building barns, infrastructure and purses,” she said.

Fonner Park was able to increase its purses 20% this season because of casino revenue through its pairing with Elite Casino Resorts, said Chris Kotulak, the track’s chief executive officer.

The Grand Island Casino Resort opened as a temporary facility in December 2022. A new $100 million casino is slated to open early next year. If not for the casino, Fonner Park would likely have faced reducing purses, he said.

“We don’t have a money tree orchard in our racetrack infield,” Kotulak said. “But we have a sapling from a seed that casino gaming has afforded us.”  

Pryor, the Omaha area horse breeder, said she would like to see bigger purses and opportunities for Nebraska-bred horses to win them.

Larmon said Pryor, a friend from childhood, is risking a lot to develop her breeding business.

“It isn’t easy to get to this point that she’s getting to,” she said.

Like any sports fanatic, Pryor can list off all the great Thoroughbreds and their trainers and owners. She can trace the lineage of the winning horses.

A few years ago, she acquired two stallions for stud, Giant Expectations and Court Vision, with impressive records. Court Vision won the Breeders’ Cup Mile and Giant Expectations won almost a million and a half dollars.

On a hot June afternoon, Pryor was on her knees in a pen working on a fussy water tank. Then she guided a young intern in administering a shot to a horse. She wants to pass on her knowledge.

While racetracks don’t usually have trouble hiring enough concessionaires and tellers, some racing jobs are highly specialized, the market study said.

Older workers are aging out, and young ones aren’t taking their places. The shortage is more severe in those jobs that directly work with the horses, the study said.

Finding veterinarians is a challenge. People in the horse business say newly minted veterinarians would rather tend to cats and dogs on a regular schedule than work the odd hours and weekends when races occur.

Authors of the marketing study suggested the Nebraska Racing and Gaming Commission should work with Nebraska’s trade schools and university agricultural programs to provide a pipeline of workers skilled in the equine and parimutuel industry.

Pryor still puts in eight-hour days, but admits it’s harder lately. A diagnosis of COPD and a temperamental right arm aren’t helping. She pushes through with grit and optimism.

Breeding of horses requires patience. It takes five years from breeding to the starting gate.

Like most Thoroughbreds, the orphan on her ranch likely won’t race till she’s three years old.

Her name is Miss R Mae. Pryor said she walks like a champion.

“She might be our Derby horse,” she said.

Her friends believe that if anyone can reach the Derby, Pryor can. They already picked out a dress and hat for her to wear at Churchill Downs.