THE COURSE Vital statistics Getting there The grounds The grandstand Racing calendar The top brass A new voice A RACING PRIMER Glossary Betting options Daily Racing Form Number by colors STORIES Contest of survival Opening Day Art Thiel's column Ron Crockett profile Info Age race track Longacres Mile lives Families reunited The competition Cover P-I home page

Track of Dreams Stately new park takes the reins from Longacres By Dan Raley SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER UBURN -- It's survival, by a nose. One thousand, three hundred and thirty-eight days later, the state's longest and most hotly contested thoroughbred race reached the finish line with the June 20 opening of Emerald Downs, a splashy $82 million racetrack built in the heart of the Green River valley. The equine sport returns to Western Washington from oblivion on a full gallop. Forcing racing fans to travel 96 furlongs farther south, Emerald Downs steps up as a replacement track for vacated Longacres, now overrun by weeds and an antiseptic airplane training center in nearby Renton. Emerald Downs' high-tech oval closes out a bitter struggle -- 80 site considerations, 40 court hearings and a couple lawsuits -- to restore horse racing to the region. But things are different this time. Quaint has been supplanted by gloss, tradition by innovation, a sense of despair by relief. The first races in almost four years will be run over a rich compost surface, pass in front of a palatial six-story grandstand and conclude with horses retiring to a barn area built with unprecedented comfort, all of which is Emerald Downs and hailed as racing for the 21st century. No longer is there clamoring for the days gone past of Longacres, which for six storied decades was the local horse outlet. That changed when Boeing purchased the track property for commercial purposes, ponying up an estimated $90 million, and shut down a thriving operation on Sept. 21, 1992. Twelve miles away, the bitter divorce has become final. "I don't miss Longacres," said veteran trainer Richard Wright of Seattle. "I wrote Longacres off. It's a space in my life. It's over with. I'm going into bigger and better things. Longacres was a beautiful race plant. I did good there. But I have something that is so much better than what I left there." Added 15-year Renton trainer Alana Goff: "Longacres will always have a special place in my heart. The thing I won't miss about it is everything was falling down." Emerald Downs was put together in 14 months after the first shovel hit the ground. The ultra-modern track has been squeezed onto land that formerly contained three farms, with some of the old fencing still visible, and is bordered on two sides by active railroad tracks. Curiously, Emerald Downs is not unlike Longacres in that it sits near a busy freeway (167 instead of 405) and an oversized shopping mall (the Super Mall rather than Southcenter), and stares straight into the face of Mount Rainier. "The mountain's a lot closer now," Puyallup trainer Terry Gillihan pointed out. With its handsome, glass-encased grandstand rising high above the valley floor, racing purists will note that Emerald Downs has chosen a vertical approach for fan viewing -- the opposite of most established and aging tracks nationwide, which resemble stretch limos in design. The $30 million teal and white grandstand was created by the Philadelphia architecture firm of Ewing, Cole and Krause. Fan accessibility, not cautious replication, was the desired approach. The grandstand was built in a cantilever mode, so there are no posts obstructing sightlines. "It looks pretty compact," said Peter Tunney, general manager of Golden Gate Fields (in California) and a recent visitor to Emerald Downs. "It's certainly not Arlington or Belmont, but it looks like it suits Western Washington. Everything is first-class." Emerald Downs, however, wasn't afraid to borrow from others when it came to details. The paddock, an enclosed area and walkway where horses preen for their owners, kids and serious bettors before heading out on the track, resembles Oklahoma City's Remington Park. There's a grassy knoll area filled with picnic tables and made specifically for families, an idea lifted from Chicago's Arlington International. There are also several Santa Anita light touches, a few Churchill Downs characteristics in place, even some European track influences. Much of this is the handiwork of Ron Crockett, an intense millionaire businessman from Renton who drove Emerald Downs to fruition, operating much in the same manner as a heavy-handed jockey flailing away on his mount down the homestretch. Crockett, 56, led the push to obtain the Auburn site, traveled the countryside himself to pick out the curtains and wallpaper for the sprawling thoroughbred enclave, and kept his spurs dug deep in the hard-hat types who have been scrambling to get everything in place. An owner of 63 race horses himself and a Longacres regular since his youth, he put down the first $10 million to build the track, collected another $12 million from 31 fellow investors and arranged bank loans to secure the rest of the funds needed. His Auburn proposal survived great scrutiny. Other potential tracks pegged for Fife and Lacey drew considerable attention but not enough support, and ultimately were rejected. But with all the grandeur and positive feelings that will emanate from Emerald Downs in the weeks ahead, caution will ride side by side around the track for the first few seasons. The Auburn venture is one of only three new racetracks popping up across the nation, joining one near Dallas and another in Virginia -- a telltale sign the industry has grown stagnant. Where it once monopolized gambling revenues, horse racing now must share the take with casinos and state lotteries. Off-track betting outlets also have become popular and cut seriously into live track traffic. The most callous naysayers have predicted the nation's 90-plus racetracks will be reduced to two dozen by the turn of the century, with satellite wagering the norm everywhere. Locally, skeptics wonder if permanent damage wasn't done by leveling Longacres and leaving the market relatively bare for so long. Crockett disagrees, insisting Washington is one of the few places nationwide that demands live thoroughbred racing. To support that argument, industry officials point out that Washington was fifth in the nation in foal production in 1986 (2,200) and still ranks 10th (1,200) today. Crockett also said state thoroughbred sales, on the average, were up 14 and 26 percent over the past two years. In its final 10 years, Longacres averaged 8,500 fans and a $1.2 million handle daily. In its absence, a pair of makeshift substitutes -- off-track betting in Tukwila and a winter meet held at Yakima Meadows -- brought in an average of almost 4,000 fans and a $780,000 handle. "I'm starting a business with basically 60 percent of the remaining business generally on hand; (whereas) when they started a new track in Texas, they started with zero," Crockett said. "My feeling is it has kept the sport relatively intact. . . . It's a test case. "It will be an interesting case to see how we get back to par, because there's par to be measured against." But the inclusion of slot machines, which many struggling tracks have embraced with great success, will not be part of the equation at Emerald Downs, Crockett maintains. "I built a live racing venue," Crockett said. "I did not build a casino." Golden Gate's Tunney said all new tracks today face a certain amount of risk. Even the large, long-established racing ovals of Southern California are under great pressure financially, with Hollywood Park opening a casino next to its track. "People have gone in and hit a lot of bumps, like Canterbury (Downs) in Minnesota, the tracks in Texas and one in Birmingham, Alabama," he said. "(The tracks) all appeared to be over-built in anticipation. I think Ron has got the grandstand in the right size." Early signs persist that people, both in and out of the barns, can't wait for the local return of the thoroughbreds. The track has received 3,700 requests for its 1,276 stalls and 400 requests for 250 reserved clubhouse boxes. Group bookings have been made for 28,000 people, with the track able to handle 450 at a time. Weddings, reunions, rotary meetings and assorted banquets are among the functions lined up, and will be held simultaneously while the horses are running. Displaced horsemen, who scattered mainly to Yakima, Phoenix and California to race when Longacres was taken away, or quit racing altogether, also have embraced Emerald Downs with a noticeable fervor. Memberships in the Washington Thoroughbred Breeders Association topped 1,200 before Longacres folded, then fell off to 750 once it did. With the new track on the horizon, memberships have climbed back to 850 and are expected to surpass 900 by year's end, WTBA general manager Ralph Vacca said. However, not all is perfect at Emerald Downs. Crockett has braced himself for complaints about parking, which is not set up as close to the track as it was at Longacres. Carts will be used to transport large groups of fans. Off-site parking may be necessary at times on busy days. Confident his product will sell, Crockett didn't spare any cost in completing two areas that many tracks have short-circuited: the barns and the racing surface. He spent $10 million on the 11-barn backstretch alone, dazzling people with amenities such as laundry rooms for personal and commercial use, dorm rooms with cable hookups and trainer offices. There are also ice machines, shower seats and saunas, baseboard heaters and 44 bathrooms. Longacres had the occasional tack room; the new track has 22 per barn. "You usually have to go off the track to do laundry," said Nancy Tubbs, a 46-year-old groom from California who decided to move north and look for work. "Bay Meadows and Golden Gate are basically really dirty tracks. They haven't been kept up. This is the best track I've ever seen. It's gorgeous." Scott Little, a 26-year-old groom from Spokane, thought he would work at Emerald Downs only temporarily and return home. His plans have changed. He intends to live at the track, something he wouldn't have considered elsewhere. "I never thought I'd like it over here, but I do," Little said. "It's unbelievable, the grooms quarters. In Spokane, I rented an apartment because the places (at Playfair) were so run-down. I've never been so happy in life than to be here right now." 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