The Arizona racetrack at Arizona Downs first held racing in 1948 near Scotsville and operated under the name of Ingleside Turf Club. The track was in direct competition with another Arizona racetrack, Turf Paradise. In 1954 Arizona Downs planned to enlarge its current track, but it became clear that there would be a conflict of racing interest with the nearby Turf Paradise, whose owners were planning to build a new track. It would clearly not be beneficial for both to host meetings on the same day, so the compromise solution was that they should share a racetrack, Turf Paradise, each operating for half of the racing year. This was agreed and worked for a number of years until Turf decided to try to introduce a new company into the equation. This new company would try to run racing at Turf Paradise in the half year that would have been allocated to Arizona Downs. And so to court!
I am grateful to our American Racing Correspondent Richard Gauthier for the scan shown below:-
Racing, in the form of both thoroughbred and quarter horse racing, continued at Arizona Downs (Yavapai Downs) until the programme lapsed in 2010. The site was sold for 5.5 million dollars in 2013 to Gary Miller, and he opened a speedway track on the site, although within 18 months the site had been relisted for sale. It took almost 4 years, and a lowering of the price to 3.22 million dollars, before it was sold to J&J Enterprises who set about the task of returning live racing to Arizona Downs in 2018.
