Lewis: I want the best for Cassada Gardens Race Track and horse racing

Businessman Carlton “Tyre Master” Lewis said his decision to see out a court battle against the Antigua Turf Club (ATC) over who holds a legitimate lease on lands encompassing the Cassada Gardens Race Track, is to ensure the property does not end up totally in the hands of a foreign investor.
“I got that land from the government of Antigua & Barbuda so I don’t want to hear about parties, and I think that should stay with the people of Antigua & Barbuda as the Cassada Gardens Race track. Not for Tyre Master, not for Jojo [Joseph Apparicio], not for anyone but for the people,” he said.
“When I see things like this, with Neil Cochrane wanting to take such a valuable land to give to foreign investors [and] we won’t have any jurisdiction over that land, I will not do it, not even for US $10 million or whatever they might want to offer,” he added. 
Speaking on the Good Morning Jojo Sports Show on Thursday, Lewis said that should the judgment come in his favoor, he would temporarily allow the horse racing fraternity to utilise the facility until he is able to bring his investors together.
“They love racing and so I would turn that over to them until I can get my investors back on track because when you have investors come to spend millions of dollars and you mess them around, it is not that you are going to click your fingers and they come back. You have to go back to negotiate and let them know what happened and that everything is alright and then we would show you what racing should be,” the businessman said.
“I would contribute and put some money in to assist because I love horse racing, so all the time that I am not involved it grieved my spirit to see and to hear that these guys run races and sometimes they only get a little $700,” he added.
The Antiguan has expressed confidence in the argument put forward by his legal team.
“I must have had some sort of confidence to pay all that money to a lawyer if I didn’t think that I would have a chance but I think that Neil Cochrane and Ralph Francis and those people are wasting time because they sued the government and the court threw it out. They sued me and the court threw it out and so if the court has thrown out those then what chance have they got but justice must prevail,” he said.
The Antigua Turf Club has questioned the legitimacy of Lewis’s lease and argues that they have been given permission to utilize the property.
The judgment is expected within the next two months.