Laredo Wants To Convert Golf Course Into Racetrack
 

LAREDO, TX. - County authorities will have a presentation on Monday on the preliminary contract to convert the Casa Blanca golf course to a track for horse racing and betting site.

Attorney Steve Whitworth's will make a presentation on the proposal for a contract between the Webb County government and the Laredo Race Park company, in order to carry out the project.

The company, which also owns professional racecourses in Houston and in the Texas Valley area, wants to turn the Casa Blanca golf course to a horse racing track.

They also want to use the administrative building into a betting shop for horses of the best racetracks in the nation, as well as having a restaurant.

The Commissioners Court approved a preliminary plan to use the golf course for this purpose several months ago, provided that the directors of Laredo Race Track make significant improvements on this property.

They also want them to commit themselves in paying a good amount of dollars to county government in order to develop and build a new golf course in Webb County.

Laredo Race Track directors already have a permit from the Texas Racing Commission to carry out this project in Webb County.

Source: Laredo Sun

Quarterhorses? There can hardly be surplus thoroughbreds to go around...

Ted

I don't know any details on this proposal. but the Asmussens have a 150 horse training center just out of Laredo, Run by Steve's son Keith. I don't know the breakdown of the horses there, but they do stand at least some thoroughbreds.

A little further checking shows that there are actually 2 tracks licensed for Laredo by the Texas Racing Commission.

One is an outfit called Laredo Downs and headed by one Steve LaMantia. I couldn't find much about them except that they appear to be doing a lot of dealing in terms of horsetrack, greyhound track, moving to Haelingen, moving to Fort Worth, etc. It sounds like they got a license and are trying to turn it into something, somewhere.

The other is Laredo Race Park and they are doing the golf course presentation. Its owned by MAXXAM, the company that operates Sam Houston and are based out of Houston. The contact is Bob Bork, GM of the track in Houston and former GM at Arlington Park, Philadelphia Park and other tracks.

The class 2 lisense has to do with the population of the county the facility is in and says nothing about thoroughbred, quarter horse or even greyhound, as the same commission controls all of them. The limit on a class 2 seems to be a 60 day meet, but that seems to be up in the air too.

One thing mentioned in the stories that I found is that the plan calls for turning the golf course buildings into an otb and restaurant. They may be looking for a very short meet with a year round otb.

After looking around some it does look like it may be a shorter mixed meet, thoroubreds and quarters. That's to bad. New race tracks can many times be money making machines since all the details such as speed figures are not there early on.