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Optimism High As Oregon’s Grants Pass Downs Begins 2021 Season

CEO Travis Boersma has plenty of reasons to be excited as Grants Pass Downs begins its spring/summer meet with eight-race cards Monday and Tuesday.

Entries for the first two days of racing are very healthy—128 total horses, an average of 8.0 per race. Both stakes races—Monday's $12,000 Caveman Stakes and Tuesday's $11,400 Daily Courier Stakes—drew deep and talented fields.

Moreover, the weather forecast is perfect, and last but certainly not least, fans will be allowed on-track for the races; advance tickets are available at gpdowns.com or at the gate.

“We've got up to 1,200 fans coming and that's a big step for us,” Boersma said. “We're ecstatic. It means energy around the grandstand. As far as an intimate track experience goes, I don't think anybody has something like we have.”

When Portland Meadows shuttered for good in 2019, it could have been ruinous to racing in Oregon. But Boersma, born and raised in the Rogue Valley, had a life-long enjoyment of racing in Grants Pass, stepped up big time. He secured a long-term lease for a commercial meet at the Josephine County Fairgrounds, and in the past two years has made numerous improvements to the facility.

“Here's the thing; I've gone to this track at Grants Pass since I was brought into this life, and so I've got these memories and experiences I'll take with me the rest of my life,” Boersma said. “To think that horse racing could go away in the state of Oregon seemed tragic to me.”

“And I really started to look at how we could save it, that was the first step. And then the second step: could horse racing live without having to be propped up, and the short answer was yes.”

The Flying Lark restaurant and entertainment venue is due to open later this year on the southwest corner of the facility. The state-of-the-art venue will help finance horse racing purses, which currently average over $60,000 daily. As for wagering, the 2020 fall meet averaged a record $377,789 including a blockbuster $868,632 on closing day.

“We are a fun-loving mind-blowing company here to build legacies one race at a time, those principles and values and philosophy of business carry over to (horse racing) for me,” Boersma said. “When we can make an impact in a community in a positive way, when we can take the Josephine County Fairgrounds and start to inject life into it and take care of deferred maintenance and figure out ways to bring jobs to our community and make a difference in agriculture, make a difference in equestrian, and be a draw for horsemen and horsewomen from all over the state, that's where my juices get flowing because that's what it's all about for me, quality of life and how we can live it.”

“We're well on our way to stabilizing horse racing in Oregon, “Boersma said. “Our goal is to have the fair meets rock solid and funded, and our commercial race meet in Grants Pass dialed in and drawing people from all over the western United States.”

Boersma also participates in the races at Grants Pass. He owns a stable of horses with trainers Emilio Guerrero and Quinn Howey including five runners entered opening week, and a band of five broodmares whose progeny begin racing next year.

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Grants Pass Downs Brings Momentum To Spring Meet Opener On May 10

Coming off a record-shattering fall meeting that established new marks in total wagering and field size, Grants Pass Downs in Grants Pass, Ore., looks to continue its momentum when the 2021 Spring Meeting begins Monday May 10.

The 17-day season features Monday and Tuesday racing at 5:15 p.m. PT. Holiday racing is offered Sunday, July 4, at 1 p.m.

According to track president Randy Evers, an update regarding fans will be released next week. The situation is fluid, but Josephine County is among 15 counties across Oregon moved into the “Extreme Risk” category for COVID-19.

Despite challenges presented by the ongoing pandemic, Grants Pass Downs is thriving. At the 16-day fall meeting, Grants Pass averaged 8.03 starters per race and exceeded $6 million in handle, including a record $868,632 on closing day. It was the track's most successful commercial meeting yet.

“We were absolutely elated, we couldn't have been happier with the season,” said racing secretary John Everly. “Grants Pass is doing everything possible to make horse racing successful. It's so refreshing being around people who want to grow the sport.”

Under CEO Travis Boersma and Evers, Grants Pass Downs has undergone several significant upgrades with its racing surface and facility, including a state-of-the art safety rail and a widened racing surface that now accommodates 10 starters. And beginning this season, a new chute will make it possible for Evers to card six-furlong Thoroughbred races and 440-yard Quarter Horse events.

Everly anticipates all 450 on-track stalls being occupied by opening day, while long-term plan calls for a new off-track training and equestrian center to be built mere minutes away from the Grants Pass facility. Steve Wood, longtime track superintendent at Santa Anita Park, is overseeing development of the training center project.

Minimum purse for Thoroughbreds is $5,500 with opening week featuring a pair of stakes events: $10,000 Caveman Stakes for 3-year-olds and up on Monday, May 10 and $10,000 Daily Courier Stakes for fillies and mares on Tuesday, May 11. The initial Quarter Horse stakes is the $15,000 Mail Tribune Handicap on Monday, May 17.

In the trainers' ranks, Jorge Rosales and Quinn Howey – winners of the last two Grants Pass training titles – head a strong roster that also features veteran conditioners Teri Beckner, Emilio Guerrero and Billy Christian.

Apprentice Joree Scriver, who edged McKenzie King for the fall riding title at Grants Pass, is expected to contend for another crown this spring. In 2020, Scriver also was leading apprentice at Emerald Downs, and she currently ranks sixth with 29 wins at Turf Paradise.

In the announcers' stand, Jason Beem is looking forward to his second season as the voice of Grants Pass Downs. In addition to being one of the sport's most talented young announcers, the Seattle native is extremely popular on social media where his annual Beemie Awards had an enormous following.

“I can't wait to get back to Grants Pass Downs for the spring season,” Beem said. “Coming off such a successful fall season, I can't wait to get things going again. Grants Pass Downs is a really fun place to call races because we have had good field size and the half mile track makes for lots of fast-paced action to keep me on my toes.”

2021 live racing dates: Monday, May 10; Tuesday, May 11; Monday, May 17; Tuesday, May 18; Monday, May 24; Tuesday, May 25; Monday, May 31; Tuesday, June 1; Monday, June 7; Tuesday, June 8; Monday, June 21; Tuesday, June 22; Monday, June 28; Tuesday, June 29; Sunday, July 4; Monday, July 5; Tuesday, July 6. Post time: 5:15 p.m. July 4: 1 p.m.

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Encouraging Reversal: All Oregon Fairs Now Expected to Race

The in-flux nature of racing at Oregon's summer fairs took an encouraging turn Thursday when Oregon Racing Commission (ORC) executive director Jack McGrail announced that all four stops on the circuit now intend to host mixed meets in 2021.

That's an improvement from the update McGrail provided at the March ORC meeting, when the status of Eastern Oregon Livestock Show meet in Union and Harney County Fair in Burns were both considered to be in limbo because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Those two fairs will join Crooked River Roundup in Prineville and Tillamook County Fair in Tillamook, both of which had already expressed commitment to racing in 2021.

“Our four fair meets are all tentatively scheduled to run this year, which is rather surprising,” McGrail said during the Apr. 15 teleconference meeting. “But we're very pleased about that. The situation is somewhat fluid [because of ever-changing pandemic restrictions]. But we do feel that all four meets are going to run.

“Things will look a little bit different, and logistically there are some challenges,” McGrail continued. “But we've provided additional funds to the fairs to work through some of those challenges, including additional sanitation measures and cordoning off people, and [to offset] the fact that they might have some revenue losses or some reduction in revenue due to limitations on attendance.

“But that they're all going to run is a good thing, and they'll all be going to run on their traditional race dates, excepting Harney County, which is going to try, as an experiment, to move to a two-day meet July 24 and 25. We're hoping that those dates, which come on the heels of the Crooked River Roundup, will encourage more horsemen to travel out to [Harney]…”

As posted on the ORC website, the 2021 fairs schedule will look like this: Eastern Oregon (June 11-13); Crooked River (July 14-17); Harney (July 24 and 25), and Tillamook (Aug. 11-14).

McGrail explained that Grants Pass Downs, which transitioned from a fairs track to being the lone commercial licensee in Oregon in 2020 after the closure of Portland Meadows, has agreed to make small schedule adjustments to its 35-day meet so it better dovetails with the fairs circuit.

Rod Lowe, the Grants Pass Downs racing director and chief operating officer, said during the meeting that “200 plus” horses are already training at the southern Oregon track in anticipation for the May 10 season opener. He added that all 450 stalls on the grounds are expected to be allocated, but “if anybody else comes in, then we'll try to accommodate them also, somehow.”

Lowe explained that Grants Pass is in the midst of an approval process to have an adjacent three-acre piece of property converted to stabling, which will add 200 more stalls.

Lowe also noted there is currently a shortage of licensed riders to exercise horses during morning training at Grants Pass.

“We're a little short on exercise riders [and] jockeys at this point,” Lowe said. “A lot of them are still at other racetracks, and they're starting to dribble in. But so far we've been able to keep up. They've had to really run from barn from barn to get on enough horses to get everybody out; they're getting by.”

Grants Pass Downs will race Mondays and Tuesdays with a 5:15 p.m. (Pacific) first post.

Shortly after Lowe's update, the open-public commission meeting was “Zoom bombed” by an obscenity-spewing disruptor whose intrusive and lewd comments did not appear to be connected in any way to the racing community. The tele-meeting had to be stopped, and to deny further access to the troll, a private link to continue was emailed to commission participants; this prevented TDN from covering the remainder of the meeting.

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Oregon Fairs Circuit ‘Cautiously Optimistic’ About Racing This Summer

Regulators and stakeholders in Oregon are making tentative plans for the state's four-track fairs circuit to be back in action in this summer after getting cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

But Oregon Racing Commission (ORC) executive director Jack McGrail said during a Feb. 18 meeting he expects those venues will need to be supported by some forms of outside funding in order to conduct mixed Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse meets in 2021.

“I'm happy to report that the larger takeaway is that the fairs really do want to run this year,” McGrail said while recapping the highlights of a recent conference call among industry stakeholders. “They are cautiously optimistic that with protocols in place and some improvements in the overall COVID numbers they'll be able to put on racing.”

The Eastern Oregon Livestock Show meet in Union traditionally kicks off the summer fairs circuit in June. Crooked River Roundup in Prineville, which races at night and generally attracts the largest handles and average attendances in Oregon, races in July. Tillamook County Fair in Tillamook (August) and Harney County Fair in Burns (September) round out the circuit.

Grants Pass Downs, which transitioned from a fairs track to being the lone commercial licensee in Oregon last season after the closure of Portland Meadows, will race two extended meets that don't overlap with the fairs, from May through July and September through November.

McGrail said that the concerns of operators were focused on how to keep crowds manageable relative to pandemic restrictions while making sure there would be enough attendees to generate sustainable revenue.

Keeping fans socially distanced in a fairgrounds setting was one issue that came up. Plus the fairs are also primarily staffed by volunteers, who thus far have expressed a health-related reluctance to commit.

McGrail added that the tracks are exploring technologies that would allow fans to place wagers without having to walk up to mutuel windows. But one concern in that area has to do with making sure those bets get counted as on-track wagers, “which is a significant issue, because there's a lot more money and revenue for the operator when they're on-track wagers,” he said.

“These limitations might require that there be an influx of money from sources, whether it's the ORC and/or others, to allow the fairs to run,” McGrail said. “All of the summer fairs are going to need more funding just to operate in this environment.

“But I do applaud the fairs for all of their innovation and commitment to running, and I think it's important to racing in Oregon to keep these fairs going to the extent that we can,” McGrail said.
McGrail said that the next step in the process would be for the fairs to submit financial data to the ORC prior to the Mar. 18 meeting, which is when budgeting issues will be taken up. This will enable the ORC to “review what the commission might be able to offer and what the fairs are requesting,” he said.

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