This article was in the Daily Racing Form ten years ago. I just found it going through some old papers. Why was this project dumped, and the Bellagio opened instead?

Steve Wynn, chairman of Mirage Resorts, Inc., and Kirk Kerkorian, who three times built the world’s largest hotel including, most recently, the MGM Grand, confirmed they will join forces and begin construction on a $2.6 billion racetrack-casino complex in Las Vegas this summer. The project, tentatively named “The Downs”, will feature a one-mile racetrack and seven-eights mile turf course housed inside the world’s largest hotel-casino. There will be a retractable roof above the racetrack. Wynn said the complex, which will stretch west four miles from the old Dunes Hotel, should be completed by the autumn of 1998.

“The idea is to show the world that horseracing and casino gambling can not only coexist, but thrive right here in Las Vegas” explained Wynn, whose properties include The Mirage, Treasure Island, Golden Nugget and Golden Nugget-Laughlin. “With revenues generated from other forms of casino gaming, I expect our purses to be the highest in the world.”

Then the gaming guru dropped a real bombshell. Wynn said he “fully expected” that the Breeders’ Cup would make its permanent home in Las Vegas by the year 2000. “I’m just going to make them an offer they can’t refuse,” joked Wynn, invoking Godfatherly tones. “First of all, purses will be doubled - $2 million for the first five Breeders’ Cup races, $4 million for the Turf and $6 million for the Classic. We’re also prepared, on our own if necessary, to offer a $2 million turf race for fillies and mares. I’m told there’s a need for that.

Meeting in an unprecedented joint emergency session, the Nevada Gaming Control Board and the Nevada Gaming Commission quickly gave unanimous approval for the project. Commission chairman Bill Curran called “The Downs,” which is expected to create 20,000 new jobs and generage $2 billion in handle in its first year, “monumental.” Control Board head Bill Bible termed it “visionary.” Nevada Gov. Bob Miller, further underscoring the importance of the project, immediatelt signed into law landmark legislation which reduces the state’s pari-mutual take-out to a flat 12 percent on all wagers.

Wynn, of course, isn’t stopping there.

“We want to have a major 3-year-old race that will turn the Triple Crown into the Grand Slam,”, he said. “We’re thinking about offering the ‘Las Vegas Derby’ in July, four or five weeks after the Belmont Stakes. The purse would be at least $1 million.

The racetrack at “The Downs” will feature individual 13-inch television monitors at each of the 24,000 seats. Each seating area will also have its own wagering terminal, developed by Consolidated Automatic Betting Systems (CABS), which will permit players, utilizing an approved credit card or one supplied by the hotel-casino after a credit check, to make wagers from their seats on all live races as well as those being simulcast into “The Downs” racetrack. There will be no separate admission for entrance into the racetrack and those who remain for three or more consecutive hours – a “timecard” is stamped and issued when entering the facility – receive a complimentary pass to the “Backstretch Buffet.” Track customers also amass credits based on frequency of attendance and/or size of their wagers. These “Downs Discounts” may be used for accomodations, entertainment and gourmet restaurants.

The size of “The Downs” hotel is overwhelming: It will have 7,011 rooms, including more than 1,000 suites; 16 restaurants; a 120-store underground shopping mall replete with a 12-screen movie complex; parking for 15,000 cars; a total of 6,500 video display terminals and 350 gaming tables within five separate racing-themed casinos, each of those with its own 200-seat race and sports book; four showrooms; an 18,000 seat arena; a complete zoo; 24 tennis courts; four swimming pools; two health spas; plus a stable and trails for horseback riding. The facility is so enormous that high-speed monorails will be employed to transport visitors between attractions.

“With Kirk Kerkorian as a partner,” said Wynn, putting his arm around the reclusive billionaire, “I don’t think there’s anything we can’t accomplish.”