By Dean “The Sportsman” Greenaway
Bushes have overgrown the Ellis Thomas Downs
It doesn’t appear that there will be horse racing in the territory anytime soon. Approaching three years since the Thomas Family ordered the Ellis Thomas Downs in Sea Cows Bay closed in September 2022 after negotiations for use of the Ellis Thomas Downs horse track broke down, Premier Natalio Wheatley said negotiations are at an ‘impasse.’
“We haven’t been able to get past the impasse as yet, as it pertains to the track,” Wheatley said during a joint Friday press conference with Third District Representative and Deputy Premier, Julian Fraser, in whose district the track lies. “I made robust efforts to have discussions on something mutually beneficial. That hasn’t been successful yet, but we continue to try.”
Wheatley said there have been persons who have suggested looking at other potential areas for a horse track, which they have explored but nothing has come forward as being viable at this time. “But we continue to try,” he stated.
Fraser said horse racing is part of the BVI’s vernacular and they have gone as far as designating a holiday for horse racing in Sea Cows Bay, which started in 1957. He noted no one wants to see horse racing in operation as he would like.
“As the Premier said, it’s complicated. It’s an area that the government didn’t focus on as part of its subject, so to speak,” he said. “We got the track. We developed the track, built the grand stand and we literally turned it over to the private sector so to speak and the interest and the focus wasn’t there.”
Fraser, who was on hand in 2009 when the Little A. Racetrack was renamed the Ellis Thomas Dows and presented Thomas with an award, recalled that when he was Communications and Works Minister, he was given the opportunity to handle the infrastructure. He stated that he didn’t want any part of the administration of the horse track, because only the Minister of Finance had the reach to deal with a matter like that and it got out of hand. During the 2009 renaming exercises, Fraser made a call for a management board and a horse racing Commission to be established, but nothing has happened since.
“The reason is simple. Horse racing in and of itself, is not sufficient as a commercial draw to sustain the facility,” he noted in 2009. “The BVI is far from being an exception. So, it is in this vein, that I advocate the establishment of a management board—much like Prospect Reef—with the expressed mandate of making the facility economically viable. The government must take a stand—much like Ellis did in 1943—and decide upon the form of support it can sustain for this sport. My view is that any government subsidy should be made to a management board.”
On Friday, Fraser said that looking at it now, he’s seeing that the general populace is advocating for the track. “They’re yearning for this track. It’s something that wasn’t happening at the time, so I do believe Premier, that we will have to make a concerted effort and another push, to see what we can do,” he said. “I think the populace has the appetite now to understand that if you need it that bad, it’s going to cost you. And if it’s going to cost you, you’re going to pay. You cannot come back to us and complain, because it’s not going to be cheap. But we have to do something.”
