THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 17, 1994 TAG: 9410170059
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 125 lines
Arnold Stansley competed for Virginia's only horse track the same way he used to steal harness races as a driver. He studied the field, planned his strategy carefully and drove hard on the backstretch when it counted.
Stansley, who won the state's first pari-mutuel track license last week, considers himself both a horseman and a businessman. He raced and raised standard-bred horses from the late 1960s through the mid-1980s, while running family construction and trucking companies.
``I look at (horseracing) as a sport and the sport I love, but I also know it's a business and it has to work,'' he said.
Buying Raceway Park in Toledo, Ohio, six years ago showed him a way to combine his expertise and interest. He and one of his partners in the New Kent County track, James Leadbetter, also built and retain a controlling interest in Trinity Meadows Race Track near Fort Worth, Texas.
As he did in Virginia, Stansley beat out several better-known competitors with deeper pockets two years ago to win Texas' first Class 1 thoroughbred race track license. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram described Trinity Meadows at the time as the ``quiet, overlooked underdog'' in the competition.
Stansley, 62, who erupted with excitement Wednesday morning when he learned he had won the Virginia track, isn't exactly known for his quiet demeanor. But few would have predicted a few months ago that a man with little formal education and less than two years of thoroughbred racing experience would nose out Churchill Downs Inc., one of the most patrician and well-known track owners in the country.
Stansley said the Virginia Racing Commission recognized that his track proposal - the product of business acumen and months of hard work - made more sense than his competitors'.
His coordination with Maryland Jockey Club president Joseph A. DeFrancis is the heart of his race track deal, Stansley said. Stansley, ``who flew to Washington and knocked on (DeFrancis') door,'' managed to cut a deal that, at least on paper, seems promising for both states.
DeFrancis will stop racing at his Pimlico and Laurel race tracks during the summer months, encouraging his horses and patrons to head south to Colonial Downs. During the winter when the Maryland tracks are running and his track is idle Stansley will simulcast DeFrancis' races at Colonial Downs and his six off-track betting sites.
The cooperation will boost the quality of Stansley's races by encouraging top horses to try the new track, and will inflate his bottom line by providing off-season betting opportunities for Virginians. DeFrancis, who said his business would have been hurt by competition from Virginia, will now get to make profits off races in two states.
The racing commission could barely contain its excitement last week about this arrangement. In a decision that praised Stansley and his proposal extensively, the commission wrote: ``The Virginia-Maryland racing circuit presents the best opportunity for Virginia's racing industry to promote, sustain and grow a native horse industry.''
Stansley believes his track will be more successful than those that had been proposed for Portsmouth and Virginia Beach because of the off-track betting potential.
With a track 90 minutes away in New Kent County, the off-track betting parlors he plans for Hampton Roads will do well, Stansley said. If the track were in Hampton Roads, local off-track betting sites would simply pirate profits from the track.
Stansley, who claims to stand 5-foot-4 inches tall, but looks several inches shorter, likes to brag about the racing product he provides in Toledo and Texas and will bring to Virginia. He repeatedly praises the cleanliness of his tracks and talks with passion about his business-smart interest in pleasing his customers.
Like him, people who come to a race track want to win money, even if they lose it again one or two races later, Stansley said.
``If you can't pick the first three races and you lose your $30, then you're gone,'' he said. ``If you've picked one of those three and made $100, then by the sixth race, you're still turning it.''
The more times patrons ``turn'' their dollars, the more money Stansley makes and the more money goes into the daily purses used as rewards to attract high quality horses.
Stansley said his thrill at watching people win goes beyond his desire for profits.
``You get a first-timer there that hits a race - picks one (horse) because it's their granddaughter's middle name, and they win $10 - you'd swear that they just broke the bank,'' Stansley said. ``It's so much fun to watch that. They scream. . . . I just stand behind and watch that all night long.''
Though his sister, who also owns a piece of his Toledo track, is taking a turn at managing it, Stansley still spends most of his days at the office and many of his nights watching harness race drivers chase the pace car.
He said he was OK about handing control over to his sister after five years of running Raceway Park, but he still has ``to know what's going on all the time.''
``I drive through, go to maintenance buildings, at night I go through everything.'' He will run the Virginia track.
He says he's thrilled to get home at the end of the work day, but also admits his wife Jeannie is somewhat of a horseman's widow.
``It's your work and your recreation all in one.''
Stansley, an extremely warm person who works hard to be well-liked, believes he will overcome any residual anger Hampton Roads residents have about not winning the track for themselves.
``I can't imagine that Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Norfolk and Virginia Beach people wouldn't come up here . . . on weekends or whatever.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
Arnold Stansley, No. 6, above, raced and raised standardbred horses
for nearly 20 years. Now, at 62, he hopes to enjoy the sport
vicariously through people who bet and win at his tracks.
Arnold Stansley beat stiff competition such as Churchill Downs to
win Virginia's first pari-mutuel track. He says that the racing
commission recognized that his proposal for the New Kent County
track, left, made more sense than his competitors'.
KEYWORDS: INTERVIEW RACE TRACK HORSE RACING by CNB