Since AmWest Entertainment LLC acquired Sports Creek Raceway, the Kentucky-based company has maintained the property with one intent in mind: to bring back horse racing.

AmWest Entertainment, and its subsidiary AmRace & Sports LLC, purchased Sports Creek Raceway in 2018, four years after racing shutdown at the Swartz Creek oval. By 2018, AmRace began applying for a racing license from the Michigan Gaming Control Board. With its applications getting rejected, Nelson Clemmons—CEO of AmWest Entertainment—went forward with an attempt to pass legislation that would allow for racing to come back to Sports Creek.

“We stand ready to go forward,” Clemmons said in an interview with M Live. “We’re hopefully, but we have to be cautiously optimistic because of what we havent’ been able to keep moving forward on a consistent basis.”

Bringing horse racing back to Sports Creek has been the main goal of AmWest, however Clemmons has indicated that the company has options to develop the property alongside racing. In 2019, legislation was introduced to legalize historical horse racing in the state of Michigan. However, the bill has yet to be brought to a vote in Michigan’s congress in part due to the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic also set back the return of racing to Sports Creek, with the track being issued a conditional license in 2020. Yet, in late October, the Michigan Gaming Control Board announced it denied Sports Creek a permit for racing and simulcast in 2021.

“Covid really had the attention of both the Houses of the Legislature, along with the budget, but Covid was disruptive,” Clemmons said. “We felt very positive about the outcome until, from the governor’s office, the message was transmitted that, as we understood it, she did not want to see the bill and was not going to support it.”

Clemmens also said that he is hopeful a decision on the track’s future will be made by late spring or early summer.

(with files from M Live)