Emerald Downs president reveals why beloved racetrack may close next year

A cherished racetrack and Auburn community staple could be in jeopardy next year. The Seattle Times reported Tuesday that Emerald Downs could shut down in 2026.

Emerald Downs President Phil Ziegler told “The Jake and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio that although the track has a great crowd and has the support of the Muckleshoot tribe, outside influences are getting in the way.

“A couple years ago, there was a federal law passed that was in a COVID bill, and it created a federal oversight of horse racing,” he shared. “And the rules are fine, and they do help the sport, but it came with a cost, and they changed their methodology on how they compute costs for tracks, and it impacts, it will save a lot of money for the bigger tracks in bigger states, and will impact smaller tracks like us.”

Emerald Downs could suffer $500,000 loss

Ziegler said his business is looking at a $500,000 hit.

“When you add up all the money, we have to pay for regulatory costs and also to our own state commission, the regulatory fees start to really cut into what our race purses are,” he explained. “And the purses are what drives the industry. People that work here, they all run for these race purses, and that’s what supports all the jobs.”

Ziegler is hoping he can work with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and garner support from Washington lawmakers to lessen the cost.

“We’ve been down in Olympia for the last four years, and over the last couple years, they did give money to our racing commission, and that’s the other part of the story and the more disturbing part of the story — is that our racing commission, in a public meeting two months ago, declared that the Office of Financial Management did projections for them, and they’re projected to be broke in the next couple of years. And you have a state agency that regulates the industry. The only way they’d be able to stay solvent, which they need to, would be to raise fees to us and to the industry workers,” he shared.

So there you have another government entity that needs to raise fees to us, and that’s the support we’ve been looking for in Olympia from some of our legislative friends down there to make the case that $240 million annual impact is worthwhile of putting some money to, at least, regulate the sport and fund their own racing commission, that is something that we have not been successful in getting done,” Ziegler continued.

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