Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 13, 1994 TAG: 9410130056
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Maryland racing executive Joseph DeFrancis and Ohio track owner Arnold Stansley won the potentially lucrative Virginia track franchise six years after state voters approved the concept of pari-mutuel wagering on horse races. The partners - who became allies after a DeFrancis site in Loudoun County was scuttled when voters reversed their decision to allow pari-mutuel gambling - topped a field of five bidders that included Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby; a group of prominent Virginia political figures, and Covington dentist Jeffrey A. Taylor.
The state's first pari-mutuel track will have a profound effect on Maryland racing when it opens in 1996. The Virginia 102-day thoroughbred season will run from mid-June to mid-October. During that time, DeFrancis will shut down his Maryland races at Pimlico and Laurel, he said Wednesday. He said he believes that Maryland horsemen will go to the Virginia racecourse because he foresees good purses and attractive facilities in New Kent.
(A 50-day spring racing season in Virginia will feature standardbred, or harness, racing.)
The failure of Virginia's Prince William County to win the racetrack's potential economic bonanza comes close on the heels of its loss of the proposed Walt Disney Co. theme park. ``It's going to be one more blow to the economic development of Prince William County,'' said Haymarket Mayor John R. ``Jack'' Kapp.
The new track will create 800 to 1,000 permanent jobs and add millions of dollars to the state's economy, officials said Wednesday. ``We'll be right up there with New York and Southern California'' among the premier racecourses in the nation, DeFrancis said.
The racecourse will be about a two-hour drive from Washington, D.C., and just over 20 miles east of Richmond.
Called Colonial Downs, the track is scheduled to open in 15 months. It will be supplemented by up to six off-track betting parlors in Virginia communities that approve them. Plans call for a one-mile dirt track, with a turf track inside it and a second turf track, for steeplechases, outside it. The grandstand will seat about 6,000 people.
Private investors in Ohio and Virginia will put about $11 million into the project, Stansley said. A bond sale through the New Kent County Recreation Authority will raise the remaining $29 million.
by CNB