Les Bois Park in Boise, Idaho, reopens this Saturday, July 2, for its first meet since 2008

June 30, 2011 - The Les Bois Park facility is on the Expo Idaho fairgrounds and is owned by Ada County. Under the name Treasure Valley Racing, Harry Bettis, Robert Redholz, Larry Williams, Jim Grigsby and Linda Yanke leased the track in partnership with the Alabama-based Greene Group (of which the majority owner is Paul Bryant Jr., the son of legendary University of Alabama football coach Bear Bryant). Together, Treasure Valley and Greene are returning American Quarter Horses and Thoroughbreds for 15 days of racing on the track that long has been the anchor for racing in the Intermountain West.

“When this place is up and going and groomed well, it’s as pretty a place as can be,” said Clayton Russell, vice president of racing for Idaho QHA. “We want to get the horsemen used to coming here again, seeing that Boise is here to stay and seeing how good racing can be here again. It’s going to a struggle for these guys – it always is when you shut down and open again, but the horsemen are as positive as I’ve ever seen them.”

The Idaho State Racing Commission on May 25 granted Treasure Valley Racing the days July 2, 4, 6, 9, 13, 16, 20, 23, 27 and 30; and August 3, 6, 10, 12 and 13. The trials for the Idaho Quarter Horse Association’s Bitterroot Futurity (RG3) will be July 9 at Les Bois, with the $70,000-added final July 23. The track also will host the Idaho Cup races for Quarter Horses and Thoroughbreds on closing day.

The first trainers arrived at Les Bois on May 7 and brought horses into the barns on May 15. Fred Hutton, who for the last 11 years wrote the races at Remington Park, is the racing secretary, and the track issued is first condition book June 1, when simulcasting began. Les Bois will conduct races only two days a week this season, on Wednesday afternoons and Saturday evenings, but in years forward the schedule likely would be Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

In 2008, the last year of racing at Les Bois, there were 142 breeders and 193 owners of 351 starters foaled in Idaho. Last year, there were 120 breeders and 191 owners of 332 starters foaled in-state. Over the same period, purses fell from $1,148,972 to $991,578 while handle dropped from $1,195,911 to $713,762.

“Horses and the horse industry are such a big part of the state of Idaho, from work horses originally to pleasure horses and show horses and racehorses now,” said Idaho lieutenant governor Brad Little. “The Gem County Fair, where Clayton Russell and I are from, is a big deal. When I was a kid growing up on the ranch, my dad had a few racehorses, and the ones that didn’t cut it on the track ended up being our saddle horses.

“One thing that the governor and I said was going to be a tough sell for us and the Ada County commissioners, was that if the horsemen didn’t get together it would kill it,” Little said. “And that’s what happened: All the factions of the racing community got together and got it done."

AQHA