More than two years after the Ellis Thomas Downs closed amid a property dispute, no reopening date is in sight.
“We have not yet been able to secure the existing facility to continue horse racing or any other facility,” Premier Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley said in response to questions from opposition member Mitch Turnbull last month in the House of Assembly. “So that is an ongoing effort to be made.”
Mr. Turnbull pressed further.
“Where are we with the negotiations with the landowners, if you can say so, and what can be done?” Mr. Turnbull asked during the Feb. 13 HOA sitting.
The premier responded by reiterating his government’s past explanation that the track sits on land in Sea Cows Bay owned in part by the government and in part by private individuals. “We have not been able to secure any agreement between the government and at least one of the owners of the property. So, you know, we continue exploring options for a site that could facilitate the return of what’s required,” he said.
Race to the bottom
The response suggested that little has changed since the government announced in September 2022 that the horse track had been closed until further notice due to the land dispute.
In October of that year, Education, Youth Affairs and Sports Minister Sharie de Castro said the government held two leases on the land: one with the Thomas family and “Ellis Holdings” and another with Cecil Forbes.
“The lease agreement for Ellis Holdings is $90,000 annually to be paid by Feb. 15 each year. The term of the agreement is 20 years, which commenced Jan. 1, 2012, and ends Dec. 31, 2031,” Ms. de Castro said at the time. “The lease agreement for Mr. Cecil Forbes is $80,000 to be paid in November each year. The lease expired in December 2021.”
She added that the government had discovered “issues” with the Thomas family’s lease which affected its legal validity.
The lease, she claimed at the time, wasn’t signed by the registered proprietor of the land but by a “purported entity” that didn’t have the legal capacity to contract with the government.
But when the government brought up those issues with the Thomases, the discussions broke down and the family then refused to allow the use of their property, according to government.
Family’s claims
Last May, the St. Thomas-based Virgin Islands Daily News reported an update on the Thomases’ side of the story after Elaine Thomas-Griffith, who had been representing the family’s interests in negotiations with the VI government, appeared on a sports programme on DaVybe Radio (107.9 FM) in the United States VI.
Ms. Thomas-Griffith reportedly called the government’s 2022 move “unilateral,” and said it left her family with too much liability.
“The problem for me is that if you tell me your contract with me is done, that means the liability protections, the indemnity clauses in that contract that protected my family, were to be no more,” Ms. Thomas-Griffith said, according to the VI Daily News.
“I can’t have several hundred people parading around our property without those kinds of customary protections that is in the contract, and the government clearly was repudiating its obligations under the terms of this document.”
History of the horse track
VI horse racing has a long history, which was featured in a 2016 exhibition at the now-closed 1780 Lower Estate Sugar Works Museum.
At the opening ceremony, former legislator Walwyn Brewley told attendees that the sport started when the VI economy was still mainly agrarian.
“A lot of the times during harvest season, the men used to go around riding horses to harvest,” Mr. Brewley said at the time. “There were always discussions as to who had the fastest horse.”
It wouldn’t be until the 1950s, however, that a facility was opened to hold races in a controlled setting, the late Yvonne Mactavious said at the ceremony.
Ms. Mactavious, who died in 2021, said at the time that her brothers helped clear the track of weeds and roots.
“It became a passion of mine from a young child,” she said. “I take the time out to document any and everything about horse racing.”
Track’s namesake
Ellis Thomas, for whom the SCB track is now named, helped organise the races and raised horses of his own, Ms. Mactavious said.
Though women didn’t typically race the horses themselves, she added, they played a key role in the sport.
“There were some women from Sea Cows Bay who were the movers and pushers behind Mr. Ellis Thomas,” she said. “Sometimes when Mr. Ellis was depressed, they moved him to keep going.”
Mr. Thomas died in 2009.
