Election Defeat Dashes Massachusetts 2023 Racing Hopes

Thoroughbred racing will not be returning to New England in 2023 after the citizens of Hardwick, Mass., overwhelmingly defeated a ballot initiative to authorize a new racetrack, breeding center, and equine retirement home in a townwide special election Jan. 7.

Once the polls closed on Saturday evening the tally was 828 to 311 against the proposal of Commonwealth Equine and Agricultural Center to develop the new track on a 360-acre farm in the central Massachusetts town.

"This result is very disappointing. It's heartbreaking for the horsemen," said Paul Umbrello, the executive director of the New England affiliate of the Horsemen's Protective and Benevolent Association.

This defeat is the latest in a string of almost a dozen proposals for a new track in many different Massachusetts locales that have never materialized since 2014 when Suffolk Downs in Boston announced that it would not continue full live meets. From 2015 to 2019, track owners Sterling Suffolk Racecourse, which sold the property to a major real estate developer in 2017 but retained and leased the live racing and simulcast licenses, offered boutique race meets of six to eight days per year.

"We're disappointed, but we're not quitting. We're not giving up. We're not done from the horsemen's side." Said Umbrello, who has spearheaded the initiatives to restore live racing and revitalize the Massachusetts breeding industry. "I'll take one day off on Sunday, and then it's back to work first thing Monday morning. We'll start making more phone calls and have more conversations and see where we are."

Umbrello said after the results came in that he had not had a chance to discuss the situation with Richard Fields, who heads Commonwealth Equine Agricultural Center and had a contingent purchase-and-sales agreement on the land, which will now expire next month. Fields is a partner in Sterling Suffolk Racecourse.

Meanwhile, the NEHBPA is working to come up with a Plan B.

"We have some other options we'll look at and consider," Umbrello said.

Over the last few months, horsemen and their supporters invested a considerable amount of time and effort trying to win the hearts and minds of the Hardwick townsfolk since the Board of Selectmen decided by a 2-1 vote on Nov. 21 to allow the citizens to have the final say in the matter.

Under the host city agreement proposed by CEAC, the rural community would have received a minimum of $500,000 annually for town coffers from the new track operations. The racetrack, breeding center, and racehorse retirement home would have also created full and part-time jobs and preserved open green space in the state.

"The message coming from the opposition continued misinformation, and I think that scared away folks. We tried to explain our position, so this is disheartening," said Umbrello. "Now it's back to the drawing board."

Saturday night's vote brings to a close the on-again-off-again saga that went on for the past three months on whether to allow  development of the track, which would have hosted a two-day, all-turf racing meet in September as a first step in restoring live racing to New England. First, the Hardwick Board of Selectmen voted unanimously to kill the plan to site the track on the 360-acre Meadowbrook Farm but then later approved it. Due to strong feelings and signed petitions on both sides of the issue, the board then called for a special election.