The epicenter of Oregon horse racing may want to flow to Grants Pass as Portland Meadows heads in the direction of a future as a big distribution middle. It seems increasingly more not going the North Portland race tune will see some other season. It hasn’t been bought, but a sale is pending, and plans filed with the town remaining year call for its redevelopment.
But another telling is that Dutch Bros. Coffee chief govt Travis Boersma has secured a commercial racing license for a track in Grants Pass, along with the rights for off-song making a bet and simulcast races held somewhere else, a first-rate cash-maker for roads.
The Oregon Racing Commission permitted a three-12 months license for Grants Pass Downs closing week without listening to a phrase of objection from Portland Meadows’ owners, said Jack McGrail, the commission’s executive director.
The choice wouldn’t preclude Portland Meadows from searching for a renewal of its very own license, which expires in June. But it’s not going. Oregon ought to maintain tracks through cut-up simulcasting sales, stated McGrail stated. Portland Meadows General Manager JT Corrales confirmed the pending sale in an email but stated that “nothing is for positive.”
“We are presently business as common, consisting of the Kentucky Derby Party coming up,” he wrote, including, “The deal is not accomplished.
Nonetheless, Boersma’s TMB Racing is preparing for a fall meeting in September and October, the first industrial race event at the elevated Grants Pass Downs. In the meantime, the organization will increase the grandstands and concession regions, upload midnight racing lighting and make other improvements consistent with its software to the racing commission.
Boersma, a horse racing fan who as an infant attended truthful meets at Grants Pass Downs, said commercial racing at Portland Meadows — and particularly the simulcasting and stale-tune having a bet — has historically helped help racing occasions at smaller venues like Grants Pass, in addition to Pendleton, Tillamook, and Burns.
“There’s no way to replace Portland Meadows, or what it was once,” he said. “The issue I think is genuinely essential is to maintain horse racing alive within the state.”And the Grants Pass operation may want to end up a meantime degree, Boersma said. He’s spoken with Churchill Downs Racetrack’s proprietors, which hosts the Kentucky Derby, approximately their “large hobby” in constructing a new horse song among Portland and Salem, he stated. That might be a project with a charge tag around $100 million, he said, and it can take years yet to come collectively.
Boersma has also sought a manager to run the Grants Pass operation. Among the candidates, consistent with Boersma: The Stronach Group, the component-owner, and Portland Meadows manager. The potential Portland Meadows customer is Prologis, a San Francisco-primarily based company that’s one of the globe’s largest proprietors of warehouses and distribution centers. A spokeswoman didn’t go back a message searching for the remark.
