By Neto Baptiste
A suggestion by the Cabinet that a proposed development for a modern race track by the Antigua Turf Club (ATC) could be moved to a site outside of the popular Cassada Gardens Race Track, is not sitting well with members of the horse racing fraternity.
One such member is former turf club president and horse owner, Neil Cochrane, who suggested that the body, under his tenure, fought too hard for ownership of the Cassada Gardens facility against businessman Carlton “Tyre Master” Lewis, to be told that the area is not good enough to be developed.
“Having done that without the assistance of government to win this case, those lands would still have been invested in Tyre Master, so when I listen to this it’s not a very happy place I am at as I hear that discussion. We, as horse owners, are comfortable where we are at the Cassada Gardens Race Track. We don’t need an eight furlong, we don’t need 100 acres of land in relation to building a racetrack; we are happy with a boutique race track just like they have in Tortola, the Virgin Islands, in Barbados; we are pleased that we have such an intimate situation,” he said.
The turf club and Lewis were locked in a 20-year legal battle over ownership of the facility with the businessman claiming to have had a government issued lease to the property. The turf club however rebutted that they had been granted use of the facility since 1963, and won the case against Lewis in 2018 and then the appeal in 2022.
In the recent Cabinet note, however, the government said it had received a request from the Caravelle Group hoping to improve the Cassada Gardens Race track, but noted that “Cabinet is considering alternatives”.
“I can tell you from the onset that the alternate place they are looking at, we looked at it back in 2008 and that place is not appropriate for horse racing [because] the drainage is ridiculous. We have looked at those places already and the space as well, so it’s going to take maybe three or four times the investment cost to build out that facility,” Cochrane said.
The former turf club head reminded that horse racing, although popular amongst locals, does not command a large area in which to operate.
“We have to do something that fits into our space and into our marketplace. Everybody knows that racing around the world, people only come out on big race days and they don’t come out on a normal race day. Antigua, for us, every race day in a normal race day so we get bigger crowds sometimes than what you see at a race track. When there is racing in the United States, in Florida, sometimes on a typical day you don’t even see 100 persons at the race track but what is making them money is the gaming and that is how they can pay. When you have an entity that wants to invest into the facility and gaming is what they are about you think you can take them into the wilderness,” he said.
Reports are that the UK-based group is proposing an EC$30 million investment into the Cassada Gardens Race Tracks.
