Most people around Aurora can find Aurora Reservoir on a map. The odds get a lot longer, like 100-to-1, when it comes to locating Arapahoe Park. It’s a good bet that much of the population —even those living nearby—is unaware that Colorado’s only horse racing track sits just a few furlongs away along the entrance road to the reservoir, one of the city’s most popular recreation spots.
Arapahoe Park’s been the state’s sole venue for high-level horse racing for the better part of the past three decades, but it’s remained virtually cloaked in anonymity to those outside the racing world. The 2013 season began on May 25 and brings hope to Shannon Rushton and other track veterans that more people will discover what’s right in its backyard.
As Rushton, the Executive Director of the Colorado Horseracing Association, well knows, the competition for sports dollars in Colorado is fierce — especially when most people don’t even know you are there. “We’re trying to get people to come out here, but they don’t often get outside of their world of the Broncos or Nuggets or Rockies,” said Rushton, who has history at Arapahoe Park dating all the way back to when it first opened in 1984. “You have to have a little bit of passion about horse racing to find it,” he added.
Passion is palpable at Arapahoe Park, which has found a way to stay open continuously since 1992 through prosperous and lean years. The track opened officially in 1984 to fill the void left by the closing of the popular Centennial Race Track, which exited on Nov. 6, 1983, after 43 years to make way for an apartment, condo and office complex. Built off Quincy Avenue—then just a two-lane dirt road—Arapahoe Park managed just one season before it went bankrupt.
An eight-year void of major horse racing in Colorado ended in 1992, when a new owner purchased Arapahoe Park and sank the necessary money into rebuilding the grandstand and fixing up the barn areas, which had been in rugged condition.
Rushton is grateful for every one of the 1,500 people who now show up for race day to watch Thoroughbreds, Quarterhorses and Arabians run the 1-mile oval, but he yearns for the return of times like opening day of 1992, when cars packed with eager racegoers lined up all the way back to Tower Road and fire marshals capped attendance at 10,000.
The season has shrunk to 39 race dates in 2013 — every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from May 25 to Aug. 18, post time 1 p.m. — almost half as much as the track used to run in its first three seasons. Better purse money brings a better class of horses and owners. Arapahoe Park has tried to boost its pot with the addition of Video Lottery Terminals, akin to slot machines, but consistently get turned away. Mountain casinos throwing about their considerable weight plays a part.
So, veteran trainers like Temple Rushton make due with the days they have. Temple Rushton is one of many intensely passionate people at Arapahoe Park, and the resident of Holly—four miles from the Kansas border in the Arkansas Valley—has raced horses at the track every season it’s been open. “You really hate to go anywhere else,” he said. The friendly, quick-witted 67-year-old Rushton likes to gamble, especially considering he’s in two of the highest-risk occupations around — farming and horse racing.
“Horse racing is not for the faint of heart,” Rushton said. “It’s like playing poker: Sometimes you’ve got an ace in the hole, sometimes you don’t. It’s a gamble, just like being a farmer. You put the seed in the ground and gamble it’s going to make a crop.”
Arapahoe Park’s season — even as short as it is — becomes more valuable to Rushton by the year, as he eases back his travel to other tracks such as Fonner Park in Grand Island, Neb., to make time to watch his large group of grandchildren compete in high school sports in Holly.
Rushton is serious about his horses, but has a sense of humor. A few years ago, he acquired a horse in Kentucky that was raised in Florida, same as former Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow. Rushton playfully dubbed his new horse “Tebow Time” and watched the young horse win early in his career, much like Tebow did at times with the Broncos. Tebow is gone, but “Tebow Time” remains in Rushton’s stable. The New York Jets made no serious offers.
“When riders would ride him in Nebraska, when they’d get him in the winner’s circle, they’d get off and put their knee down,” said Rushton, mimicking the Tebow-ing gesture that swept the country.
Longtime Aurora resident Reed Jenkins is another veteran who remembers when Arapahoe Park opened its doors and raced horses at Centennial Park as well. He traveled to tracks in Albuquerque, Chicago, Cleveland and West Virginia during Colorado’s eight-year racing void, but relished its return to the state. Some questionable politics brought the track to Aurora, but Jenkins has mostly overcome the bad feelings to embrace it.
“It’s a pleasure to run here now, I really enjoy it,” said Jenkins, who owns three racehorses and trains 12 others.
Horses have been a part of Jenkins’ life stretching back to a brief stint as a jockey at the Phillips County Fair in Holyoke in 1950. He worked as a dentist for 20 years until 1982, when a horse bit off the index finger on his right hand.
Naturally, Jenkins went into horse training full time. “It shows you how ignorant dentists are; a horse bit my finger off, so I started training horses because I couldn’t practice dentistry,” Jenkins says wryly.
Most of the week at Arapahoe Park is mellow, as horses get work from trainers and jockeys in a relaxed environment, but on race day, the barn area to the west of track teems with activity.
Thirty-three barns capable of housing 40-48 horses each — between 1,100 and 1,200 expect to call them home for three months this season — hum with the work of a handful of veterinarians, who attend to their clients’ horses.
Horses get two baths on race days, before and after. They get doses of legal medication at the proper times, administered by veterinarians such as Dr. Happy Fluitt, who has been in the business for 49 years and is up from Texas for his fourth season at Arapahoe Park. “Horses are like people, they have their aches and pains, so you attend to them,” Fluitt said.
Fluitt is adamant that at least with his clients, nothing more than legal medications go into a horse. Winners head straight to the test barn to have urine and blood samples taken and Fluitt claims to have never had a horse test positive for anything. “Our horses are cleaner than human athletes,” Fluitt said. “We don’t use any steroids. There’s always a bad egg in the basket, but our horses are the cleanest athletes going.”
Fluitt’s love of horses keeps him doing what he does.
“Most people in this business are hoping to make money, but a lot of it is they love what they are doing, they love the horses,” Fluitt said. “If I didn’t enjoy it, I’d be at home drinking martinis.”
Once out of Fluitt’s care, the horses head to one of Arapahoe Park’s most fan-friendly features, a paddock adjacent to the grandstands that let people get within 10 feet of horses and jockeys as they get final instructions before the race.
And then the horse go off to race. Win or lose, they get another bath and fresh hay when they return to their stalls.
Race days are the payoff, but for those who take horses to Arapahoe Park year after year, it’s about love for the animals and the thrill of competition.
“Horse racing is really not a business a lot of people want to get into; it’s expensive and I suppose there’s not really a lot of reward to it,” Shannon Rushton said. “It’s a battle, but when you love what you do, you do whatever you can to keep it going.”
Jonathan Horowitz has worked as an announcer at horse tracks around the country since he called his first race at the age of 14 in 1999. Entering his third season as the voice of Arapahoe Park, Horowitz is eager to share the best features of the track with newcomers.
Among Horowitz’s recommendations for first-time racegoers: spend $10 for a four-person table in the grandstand, wander out near the paddock to see horses and jockeys get ready for a race — much like a pro sports team strategizes in a locker room before a game — and stand along the rail at the finish line to feel the power of the horses as they thunder past just a few feet away.
Horowitz offers three free classes on track basics, titled “Wagering Dos and Donuts,” at 11:15 a.m. prior to races on June 15, July 6 and July 27. Admission is free and comes with Horowitz’s breakdown on the day’s races and donuts, in addition to tips on simple and complex wagers.
Off to the Races
Arapahoe Park
26000 E. Quincy Ave.
Race days: Friday, Saturday, Sunday (May 25-Aug. 18, plus May 27) – post time 1 p.m. (nine races per session)
Admission: $10 for a reserved table for four in grandstand; $3 general admission
Track: 1 mile (longest race 1 3/4 miles)
Horses: Thoroughbreds, Quarterhorses and Arabians