THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 13, 1994 TAG: 9410130489
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
It had to hurt.
And when the decision came that Virginia's sole race track would go to New Kent County - and not to Virginia Beach and Churchill Downs - Tom Meeker's famed corporate cool cracked, perhaps, for just a moment.
As New Kent backers rejoiced around him, Churchill Downs' president looked at the leather-bound notebook in his lap. The corners of his lips turned down. He said nothing to Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera E. Oberndorf beside him.
He got up from his seat and began to walk out.
``I'm surprised,'' he said.
This man in the crisp blue shirt and Armani glasses had personally led the two-year battle to find and win approval for a horse-racing track by his company in Virginia.
He started to say more. Then he looked down, swallowed and said, ``I just am.'' At that moment, he seemed like a small boy who had lost a school competition he very much wanted to win.
Minutes later, out in the hallway, the television reporters formed a circle around him. They shined lights and stuck microphones under his nose. Meeker instantly snapped back to his usual cool-under-pressure style. Any hint of disappointment was gone. His hands were in his pants pockets. He smiled.
No, he would not file a lawsuit. It wasn't his company's style.
``That would not be best for Virginia. For a bunch of track applicants to paw the dirt and file lawsuits, that would not be good.''
``No,'' Meeker said, and his lips tightened. ``We will leave Virginia.''
It was the Meeker most people know. The corporate president. The summa cum laude graduate. The top lawyer. The Vietnam combat veteran. The man who built Churchill Downs from a famous, but struggling, company, into a model of corporate success.
He had carried out the effort to win a track in Virginia like a military assault. He had laid the groundwork methodically, even though the company had, at best, a less-than-even chance of winning.
He and other officials had spent almost a year roaming Virginia looking for a site. He had taken a stopwatch and timed the drives from Portsmouth to the airport, Virginia Beach to downtown Norfolk.
After settling on Virginia Beach, he had spent long hours negotiating with city officials. He had flown from his corporate offices in Louisville to sit through civic league meetings around the track site near Oceana.
In money alone, not counting the company's time, Meeker estimated that Churchill Downs had spent a million dollars. Now, for him and the four other losing applicants, it was over.
In a way, Meeker's initial surprise at the outcome seemed strange. Meeker himself reported the rumors last week that New Kent would get it. But Wednesday morning, he seemed genuinely shocked when it happened.
New Kent was isolated, he said, in the middle of woods outside Richmond. The track applicants, Joseph De Francis and Arnold Stansley, didn't have the financial resources or the experience of Churchill Downs. Churchill had the best chance of making a horse track successful in a difficult industry, he said.
``My guts tell me they made a horrible mistake,'' Meeker told some television reporters at one point. But he quickly slipped back into politeness: ``But as a matter of fact, the commission had a very difficult decision, and this isn't to say New Kent won't succeed.''
And before walking back to his hotel, Meeker returned to the room. He found each of the commissioners in the still-bustling crowd, shook their hands and thanked them for their consideration. ILLUSTRATION: Tom Meeker, Churchill Downs president
KEYWORDS: HORSE RACING RACE TRACK by CNB