This turned out to be one of the toughest QoDs we've ever tackled and at best all we can offer you is a partial answer that may have some holes in it. We did the best we could with the available resources, which are scant, to say the least.
For a start, there have been two race tracks in Las Vegas, although the first was so short-lived that you'd certainly be forgiven for never having heard of it. You can see its location in the map below (big green area, top right), on the north end of the Strip behind the Thunderbird hotel, which seems to have earned it the informal name of the "Thunderbird Downs," although the Sales and Executive offices on the other side of the Strip (see the small green box by the Nevada Broadcasting Station) indicate that it was actually called Las Vegas Park Race Track, which was accessed solely via a narrow gravel road called Las Vegas Park Way, which ran from Paradise Road to the track.
According to a report we tracked down in the Oct. 19, 1953, edition of the New York Times, this thoroughbred race track, which had already gone bankrupt once before it even opened, debuted Labor Day (Sept. 4) of that year, only to immediately suspend business for two weeks to switch from the Australian "totalisator" to an American model, after the Las Vegas Jockey Club blamed the breakdown of the original machine for the poor handle of less than $300,000 a day.
However, the switch proved to be of no help, with the track barely breaking $100,000 per day its final two weekends. Plans to operate four days a week were scrapped and with purses slashed to $800 (as opposed to the $28,000-or-so intended average), many of the top Western stables abandoned the track in favor of California. Less than 4,000 fans turned out for the final Saturday and Sunday meetings and this lack of public interest resulted in the $4 million track's final closure on Oct. 19, followed by a second and definitive bankruptcy.
It seems some scandal followed in the wake of this short-lived fiasco, with the Oct. 20 edition of the Los Angeles Times reporting that directors and officers of the track had been ordered to appear in Reno on Nov. 2 to show cause "why they shouldn't be removed from office and why an investigation should not be conducted into the finances of the Jockey Club." There was some discrepancy regarding the size of the shareholdings of several prominent stockholders, too, who included a number of politically prominent New Englanders.
We're not sure what became of that investigation, but we do know that the 480 acres of land just east of the Strip owned by the Las Vegas Jockey Club was valued at $1.2 million (wow!) and was purchased by Joe W. Brown (a mate of Benny Binion's who ran the Horseshoe for him while Binion was serving time in Leavenworth for federal tax evasion).
According to the Las Vegas Country Club's Web site, "Brown later sold it to Marvin Kratter of Nevada Equities, who proceeded to build the country club. The golf course was completed in the fall of 1967, followed by the completion of the clubhouse in April of 1968. Mr. Kratter opened it under the name of the Las Vegas International Country Club and operated it as such until he sold it to a Strip hotel named the Bonanza. The club was renamed The Bonanza Country Club and Corral. In late 1970, it was sold to four partners of Realty Holdings (Moe Dalitz, Harry Lahr, Nate Adelson, and Irwin Molasky) who renamed it the Las Vegas Country Club and made it into a private country club in July of 1971."
It remains so to this day and is located behind the Las Vegas Hilton, accessible via Joe W. Brown Drive.
So that's the story of Las Vegas' first race track.
The second track -- the one you're thinking of -- was called the Las Vegas Downs and opened, amid much fanfare, in 1981 (shortly after Anthony Curtis first arrived in town, he recalls). The man behind it was a Las Vegas resident named Albert Funk, who dreamed of combining horse
