Horse racing has been growing at a galloping pace in Wyoming, and next summer the sport will take another giant leap.
Thunder Plains Park, a new mile-long, 80-foot wide, flat horse track will open in Cheyenne next summer. It’s the first new track built in Wyoming since the 1980s, and the state’s first mile-long track. The nearest mile-long track to Wyoming in Aurora, Colorado.
Ryan Clement, a fifth generation Wyomingite who played football as a quarterback for the University of Miami, said Thunder Plains will provide an incredible opportunity for Wyoming’s horse racing industry, benefit the local economy and boost tourism.
The benefit of a flat track is that it’s generally safer for the horses and allows them to run at a faster pace, which Clement said he saw as a better option than a shorter, more rounded track.
“It’s kind of like a restrictor plate in NASCAR,” Clement told Cowboy State Daily. “At the end of the day these thoroughbreds need to run on a long track.”
The multimillion-dollar Thunder Plains will be located 10 miles east of Cheyenne off of Interstate 80.
The Wyoming Gaming Commission gave approval for the track at its meeting last week.
And They’re Off
Clement’s Cowboy Racing LLC is the main applicant on the project, while he said Edwards Development has been the primary investor. Bill Edwards, president of Edwards Development, is Clement’s business partner with Cowboy Racing.
Thunder Plains will host its first race day on Aug. 1, 2025, and 16 total race days next summer. The park will feature mostly temporary structures in its first year of racing and the dirt track.
“This is going to be a phased process and it’s going to take a few years to get this to what we would consider a fully formed park,” Clement said. “We’ll do everything that’s required by the Gaming Commission for us to run races in 2025.”
Clement said Wyoming-bred quarter horses and thoroughbreds will race at Thunder Plains.
At some point in the future, he said off-track betting (OTB) and gaming terminals will be available at the track.
“In the future that should be kind of the epicenter of the OTB experience,” he said.
The facility will be operated by 1/ST Racing, a company that also runs the legendary Santa Anita Park in California and Preakness Stakes.
“I won’t be involved in day-to-day racing operations,” Clement said.
Cowboy Racing has also received initial approval to host OTB, simulcast and historical horse racing, but will have to seek final approval from the Gaming Commission once they have an exact site picked out for those activities.
The legalization of simulcasting and historical horse racing (HHR) in Wyoming was done in 2013 for the purpose of reinvigorating Wyoming’s horse racing industry. Horse racing isn’t generally a big money maker by itself, so OTB activities provide a way for horse tracks to stay afloat.
Competitors Concerned
During the Gaming Commission meeting last week, a study was presented to the board warning against oversaturating Wyoming’s cities with gambling opportunities. This study found that unmet gambling demands are primarily taking place in Wyoming counties that don’t have HHR opportunities.
Kyle Ridgeway, president of 307 Horse Racing, which will be one of Thunder Plains’ main HHR competitors in Cheyenne, clarified during the meeting that the study suggests that expansion of HHR in Wyoming should be limited to counties that don’t have it already or are purposefully built to target out-of-state clientele.
“I think everybody should look at the study as far as what we should be doing as a state,” he told Cowboy State Daily.
Clement said Cowboy Racing will take the study into consideration and will work with the community to forge the best path forward as far as choosing OTB locations.
Historically, OTB approvals have come for Wyoming horse tracks after they start racing but Thunder Plains was given an exception, Clement said, because of the timing of his project. He also pointed out that the only requirement is that OBT approval and the first race days take place in the same calendar year.
Some sources told Cowboy State Daily that the timing of these approvals raised eyebrows in the Wyoming gaming community. Ridgeway told Cowboy State Daily that the fact his organization started racing at Energy Downs in Gillette before getting approval for OTB elsewhere around the state “speaks for itself.”
Clement said his team has been so busy focusing on getting approval for the track that they haven’t had a chance to figure out where their simulcasting activities will be taking place.
There is also a restriction in current law which prohibits “simulcasting” within 100 miles of a permitted horse racetrack while racing is taking place unless approval is granted by the horse track. The rule was intended to protect track operators from new outside competition but in some ways the Thunder Plains situation is the complete opposite.
If Clement were to refuse to grant this approval, it would have a significant financial impact on the OTB activities of other operators like 307 Horse Racing in Cheyenne, amounting to what Ridgeway estimates would be a seven-figure loss. Thunder Plains is planning to operate every weekend in August and Sept. 1.
Ridgeway said Clement sent him an email about negotiating the waiver on Tuesday morning.
“Our plan is to work with the other tracks to create the best, sustainable platform for the future of the industry,” Clement said. “We’re all committed to working with the other tracks and making sure we’ve got sustainable OTB expansion and that all of us can race in the same ecosystem.”
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
