All Too Familiar !
With one small twist The Woodlands seems to have followed a familiar path. The twist, it started life as a Dog Racing Facility and later added horses.
The familiar part, It started life highly touted as the first pari-mutual site in Kansas three years after gambling was legalized in 1986. It started out decently it seems but in 1993 Missouri voted in Riverfront Casinos and it was down river from there. Some time around 2002 the State of Kansas revoked it's license for performance and corruption issues.
Another familiar part, along come new owners who again ignore the
obvious gamble that Racino wagering will save the day. Surprise,
surprise it doesn't happen and the last Thoroughbred crosses the finish
line at 5:21(CST) on October 27,2007. The tracks last's almost one year
more as a dog and simulcast facility, finally succumbing in August of
2008.
There have been a handful of tracks that had both horse and dog meets but The Woodlands looks like it alternated both on the same card at least in it's final years. Again not much history here just another financial disaster box to wire!
In 2012 legislation was being proposed that could lead to the re-opening of Kansas' only commercial race track.
By 2014 no agreement was ever made to re-open The Woodlands, it now seems that racing will never return to the only commercial track in Kansas. In 2014 I'm going to Kansas City to root on the New England Patriots. I plan to take a trip to The Woodlands for a photo op. Hopefully I'll be able to crawl under the barb wire and see if there is really a front to the grandstand, I don't think it's ever been photographed!
The Woodlands is definitely a dark track, it sits fully intact waiting for a rebirth. It has sat idle for twelve years and every once in a while someone takes a crack at getting it open. The last effort was in 2018, the result was the same. I did make it to the Woodlands, to my surprise the main gate was open, until I realized why. The local police department were doing some kind of high speed driving tactics in the parking lot, thought better about going in. That night I went to Arrowhead, it was the time the noise level record was set, need I say more. One good thing from that trip I got to go to Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que.