Could horse racing come back to Alabama? John Mountz and Leah Brandon are live

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
John Mount's filling in for JT.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Well.

Speaker 1 (00:02):
As I teased before the break, is there a possibility
that horse racing could come back to the Birmingham area
joining us now? Is our in house horse racing expert
Leah Brandon. Leah, you're saying there's no chance.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, there's no chance. The way I see it right now,
there's only one way that the Porch Creek Indians would
be interested in doing horse racing.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Look, well, do it have to be them? No one
else can do it but the Prestreek Indians.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Oh yeah, because they own the Birmingham race Course. Okay,
I see, yeah, they purchased the Birmingham race Course. And
these Indian tribes their only focus is protecting their gambling monopoly.
So once you start bringing in horse racing, that's a
paramutual thing.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
So they they.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Look at it as a competition, you know, against their money. However,
I do have one way that they could absolutely do it,
and that is to copy Kentucky Downs. It's a little,
tiny little race course on the edge of Tennessee and
Kentucky and it brings in ninety million dollars for the
one week of racing per year, one week, one week

(01:12):
it's huge.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Now. How does that now, how does that benefit Okay,
the race track, it's the money the Port Creek Indians.
How do we see it at benefit here in the
larger Birmingham area other than if you.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Win well, I mean the track itself gets a major
portion of the money. Okay, So they would get probably double.
They'd have to put up the purses, the money that
the horses are running for, and they would get that
from the historical horse racing machines that they already have
running and that they promised they're going to keep running.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
That's what Kentucky Downs does.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
They put up about say thirty million in purses. Every
horse and every trainer from around the world wants to
come and run because these purses are ridiculous. They could
do that, but they would get double the money back
on betting.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Now, the race course is not in the best shape.
We'd have to put or somebody has to put some
money in fixing it. U wouldn't they? Well listen, I have.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
I have looked around out there on quite a few occasions,
and it's remarkably in great condition. It has incredible barns.
There are places for the jockeys to stay I mean,
it's all set up. Milton McGregor really did it right
when he started. It's all set up. Yes, they'd have
to redo the track surface, and if they want to

(02:33):
run on the grass, they'd have to redo that.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
It wouldn't be a major deal. So you think that
it could be done, but it's probably not going to
be done. It's probably not going to be done.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
They're probably going to tear the whole thing down, put
up hotels and you know some other quote entertainment venues.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
That's what they're gonna do. We get some gambling machines
out there.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
They'll do some gambling machines. They already have them. They
have the historical horse racing. But it listen, if if
you want to attract national attention, national televised coverage, the
biggest horses from around the world coming just for that week,
follow my advice.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Go ahead and do it. Mister Indian. There you go,
Leah Brandon with her recommendation for the Porch Creek Band
of Indians. That's right. Thank you, Lee, me a call,
we'll talk. Thank you, Leah. I knew you you'd be
able to give us some sunshine on this because I
couldn't make heads or tails of this story from ale
dot com. But nothing new for me because I can't
understand a lot of stuff I read