For Turf Paradise and its horsemen, the last eight months have been a roller-coaster ride. The kind that makes you queasy, relieved to just get off. Just after the close of last year’s meet in May, track owner Jerry Simms announced that he was getting out, and Turf would be closed. A potential buyer emerged, but then backed out after the partnership couldn’t get favorable legislation passed. Simms again said that the track would be closed, but then another group emerged, leading Simms to apply for racing days. Then the new group failed to put down the earnest money that would have propelled the deal forward, after plans for a live race meet had already been approved and laid out. So Turf Paradise will run this year, for 57 days starting on Jan. 29, but there’s no guarantee that it will run in 2025. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. For now, Simms and the track’s horsemen have an uneasy truce. The relationship between the two has been strained for a decade, not surprising given the track’s financial struggles. “There’s two groups of tracks right now, and one is the group that gets money from casinos, and the other is the one that doesn’t,” said Vince Francia, the track’s longtime general manager. “How do we survive? The only way it works is if both sides [the track and horsemen] make money. So it’s not working unless we find some new paradigm.” Francia said that Simms “wants racing to continue.” But without a deal to take the track off his hands, it’s not clear he will stick around after this year. “It depends on what happens between now and May,” Francia said. Leroy Gessman, the executive director of the Arizona Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, said that it’s hard to imagine a group buying Turf Paradise for anything but its development potential. The track sits on 213 acres in North Phoenix. The area around the track has blossomed from scrub brush to big-box stores and neighborhoods over the past 40 years. “This land is so valuable, and without gaming, you can’t pay a fair price for the land and still recoup your investment if you keep it a racetrack,” Gessman said. The first investment group to consider a purchase was led by James Watson, a California real-estate developer with ties to racing. Watson attempted to convince the Arizona legislature to allow Turf to operate historical horse-racing machines – devices similar to slot machines that have generated hundreds of millions of dollars for track owners in Kentucky and elsewhere – but the legislature balked. Watson pulled his deal. After the deal collapsed, Simms again said he would close the track. But within days, another group emerged. The principals acknowledged they had no experience in running racetracks, but said they were committed to keeping racing going at the track, while also acknowledging that parcels of the property would be developed. Up until late December, Simms and others said the deal was proceeding, and track officials and horsemen both said that the group sent architects and designers to the property to identify the most pressing renovations to the grandstand. But the deal hinged on a payment of earnest money, and the group never ponied up, according to several officials. It’s not clear whether the group has pulled out entirely. “We’re still talking, so maybe it’s them, maybe it’s another group,” Francia said. “Some people think that there never was a deal,” said Gessman. Under Arizona racing regulations, the live-racing track controls the importation of full-card simulcasts to OTBs scattered around the state, with both the track and horsemen getting a cut of the revenue. When Simms announced that he was going to close the track and surrender his license, it put that money in jeopardy. It’s hard to blame horsemen for being cynical, but some believe that the emergence of the second buyer was simply a ploy to continue simulcasting until the end of the year. Turf would normally run a seven-month meet, starting in November and ending on Kentucky Derby day. This year, the meet will be a tad over four months. The five-day-a-week live racing schedule has been trimmed to four days. On the plus side for horsemen, the build-up in the simulcasting account and the cut in racing dates means purses will jump from approximately $160,000 a day last year to $190,000 a day this year. The delays in committing to a live meet created difficulties under new regulations enforced by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, which implemented its safety and accreditation program in the summer of 2022. HISA is scheduled to perform its final examination of the track on Friday for compliance with its safety rules, a process that had to be expedited due to the uncertainty over whether the track would run this year. HISA would not make officials available to discuss the authority’s evaluation of the track, but a spokeswoman, Mandy Minger, provided a statement saying that “the accreditation team’s evaluation is still ongoing, and until that process is complete, we can’t provide any further information.” HISA filed a complaint against Turf Paradise during its 2023 meet for multiple deficiencies and its failure to pay dues to the organization, but the two sides quickly reached a settlement allowing the track to continue to race. Track officials and horsemen have previously said that HISA inspectors who visited the track in December were “blown away” by recent work on the main racing surface and the track’s rail. Gessman said this week that the main racing surface “is in the best shape it’s ever been.” However, Gessman also said that the track waited too long to re-seed the turf course, after a summer of neglect, and he doubted that the turf course would be useable for the first month of the meet. Francia acknowledged that work on the turf course began too late, but he said that he’s optimistic that the grass course could be used within a week of opening. “It’s healthy, and there’s nothing unsafe about it, but it’s not as green as you might want it to be,” Francia said. “Like any grass, it’s not what’s on top, it’s what underneath, and so right now we’re worried about how deep the roots go.” So the show will go on, at least for this year. Gessman said that horsemen have begun discussing a plan to lobby the legislature for directed purse subsidies from taxes on equine products, similar to a measure that was adopted in Texas in 2019 that has led to a total of $17.5 million in purse subsidies annually for Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse races in the state. As in Arizona, racing interests in Texas have been perennially unsuccessful in convincing the legislature for authorization for casino gambling. Over the past three years, the Arizona legislature has directed $5 million in COVID-relief grant funds to subsidize purses at the track, but Gessman said that he does not believe Arizona’s new governor, Katie Hobbs, has any appetite for renewing the relief funds this year or the next. Francia said that the track does not have any current lobbying plans for the year. Instead, track officials will be searching the horizon for a new buyer. Simms has said he wants to retire after 23 years of ownership. “The horsemen seem very enthusiastic to be racing, but it’s a different type of meet this year,” Francia said. “Right now, this meet is a bridge. To what, we don’t know.” :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.