The Mystique of Ruidoso Downs

The Mystique of Ruidoso Downs

By Ezra Theobald
The Daily Party
September 6, 2022

Ruidoso Downs is a city in Lincoln County, New Mexico, United States, located within the Lincoln National Forest. The population was 3,589 at the 2020 census. It is a suburb of Ruidoso and is a part of the Ruidoso Micropolitan Statistical Area. The Ruidoso Downs Race Track, Billy the Kid Casino and the Hubbard Museum of the American West are located in the city.

On October 9–11, 2009, the twentieth annual Lincoln Cowboy Symposium was held at Ruidoso Downs. The event celebrated the ranching lifestyle, with demonstrations in horsemanship, shooting, roping, cooking, and blacksmithing. Booths offered western-style arts and crafts. Music and poetry were highlights of the festival, which featured performers Leon Rausch, Tommy Allsup and the Texas Playboys; Mel Tillis and the Statesiders; Larry Gatlin; Billy Mata, and Liz Talley. Gospel artists also performed.

Ruidoso Downs Race Track is a horse racing track in Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico. The track hosts both thoroughbred and quarter horse racing, notably the All American Futurity, the richest race in quarter horse racing.

The All American Futurity is a race for two-year-old American Quarter Horse racehorses run at Ruidoso Downs Race Track in Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico on Labor Day. It is the last leg of the AQHA Triple Crown that has only been won once, by Special Effort in 1981. A 4 million dollar bonus was once offered to the horse that could sweep all three Triple Crown races. It started in 1959, with a purse of $129,686.85. It has always billed itself as the richest race in American Quarter Horse racing, In 1978 the purse was over a million dollars and in 1982, the winner's portion of the purse totaled over a million dollars for the first time.

The track record was set at this race in 2006, when No Secrets Here finished in a time of 20.886 seconds for 440 yards, for a speed of 43.091 miles/hr. That remains the world speed record for racehorses. Refrigerator holds the record for 400 yards with a time of 19.39 seconds in 1990.