Quarter Horses Track proposed for Laurel County Kentucky

A public hearing will be on December 10, 2007 regarding a proposed Quarter Horse track in Laurel County located southeast of Lexington Kentucky along I-75.

The applicant is Sprint Racing Partners and includes the following:

John T.L. Jones, Jr.

R.D. Hubbard

Bruce Rimbo

Chris Sullivan

Paul Blanchard

Ed Allred 

They have plans for a 5/8 mile long track that is located near London Kentucky.  If approved by the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority, this will be the 9th Kentucky horse racetrack.

Estimates for costs range between $15 and $20 million dollars.

But, there is a catch.  The Kentucky Horse Racing Authority won’t be voting on the matter until after the new Governor Steve Beshear is sworn into office on December 11, 2007.

It is undecided at this point whether the newly elected Kentucky Governor will keep any of the existing board members - or place new persons into those positions after being sworn in.

There are also other applicants stirring in the mix to try and get a an approval for their own facility (there is a limited number of total racetracks that would be allowed in Kentucky - and everyone wants to get theres in before the limit is reached).  The persons that were denied their track last year had proposed a horse track located in Whitley County to be called Cumberland Downs.  They were denied their application last year, and they’ve since appealed the decision to the Franklin Circuit Court.  The Kentucky Horse Racing Authority has filed a motion last week requested that the case be dismissed by these persons.

The Kentucky Horse Racing Authority does not however have to wait for a verdict on this pending case, before awarding a license to someone else.