White Pine Horse Races

The White Pine Horse Races run on a dirt track in front of a grandstand at the White Pine County Fairgrounds, on Fairview Lane in Ely beside the Marich Softball Complex. Track and grandstand were built a year after the county formed a Fair Board in 1937, and both are still in use. The meet and the White Pine County Fair share the grounds for three days each August. The 2026 meet ran August 21 through 23, with post time at 3 p.m. on the Friday and 1 p.m. on the Saturday and Sunday. Friday admission was free, and the weekend days cost $5.

Post time on Fairview Lane

The horses are thoroughbreds and quarter horses. The race committee’s history puts the field at 150 to 250 head. Their owners, trainers and jockeys come mainly from Utah, Idaho, California and Arizona, and some come from as far as Oklahoma. The committee calls its meet smaller than the one at Elko, which in 2026 began a week after Ely’s, on August 28.

Betting is pari-mutuel. The Ely tourism office explains that the term comes from France and translates as “to wager amongst ourselves.” Bettors wager against one another rather than against the track, so the odds are not fixed, and a single ticket can pay anything from less than its cost to “astronomical amounts.” The 2025 meet carried an average purse of $6,500.

The Ely Times printed the 2025 program day by day. Friday opened with a Ranch Rodeo at 9 a.m. and races at 3 p.m., followed by a Volunteer Fireman BBQ and the band Most Wanted. Saturday opened the fair itself, with 4-H and vendor exhibits and the White Pine Jr. Livestock Show. A Beard Contest followed at 11:30 a.m., races at 1 p.m., and music through the day from Plowed Under Band and Most Wanted. Sunday began with the livestock show and sale at 9:30 a.m. After the afternoon races came a T-Rex Race, a Mascot Shuffle and barrel racing.

The tourism office lists the Friday rodeo’s events as bronc riding, barrel racing, roping, and mutton busting for the children. In 2019 the Ely Times listed team branding, team trailer loading, team cattle doctoring and team roping, with women’s steer stopping and ranch saddle bronc riding as individual events and prizes for men’s and women’s teams. That year the concession stand sold chorizos, hamburgers and hot dogs on Saturday and Sunday, and breakfast burritos on Sunday morning.

The T-Rex & Mascot Shuffle was new in 2019. Entrants supplied their own costumes and dashed, walked, danced or ran 50 yards down the track to the finish line, with no fee and no age limit. Six races were carded for that Friday, eleven for Saturday and seven for Sunday. The reporter wrote that a person standing at ground level when the horses broke from the gate could feel the ground move and vibrate. After each race, owner, jockey, trainer and race sponsors lined up for the official photograph in the winner’s circle.

A 2009 newsletter of the Great Basin National Heritage Partnership described the fair, then held the fourth weekend in August, as centered on livestock, locally grown vegetables and crops, and home arts: baking, canning, and textile and leather crafts. There was no carnival that year. Community groups ran the food concessions, among them the school band, the FFA and the cheerleaders.

Nearly 100 volunteers are needed to run the races. “The success of the races is due mainly to the many unpaid volunteers who work at the track, as well as the businesses who sponsor the races and provide other financial support,” a spokesman told the committee.

A trainer since 1979

Mike Scudder, a horse owner and trainer, has brought horses to the White Pine meet every year since 1979. “It’s not all about making money at the track, it’s about what helps the horseman,” he told the Ely Times in 2019.

That August his galloper, Adrian McKenney, who had worked with him for 15 years, took the horses out on the track. As they circled the hot walker, the reporter noted, they glanced at Scudder each time they came around the corner. He had one mare entered for Saturday. “I’ll be surprised if they beat her, she’s pretty superior,” he said.

McKenney first worked one of the newer horses, then brought out the one Scudder called his old pro. Scudder had owned it four years, and it had first belonged to people from Cherry Creek. As it galloped, Scudder watched the lead changes for any sign of trouble that might point to the horse or to the track. “He’ll know every point that he’s at, he knows right when he gets to relax and go,” he said. “You can see the power that he has, the average rider would never hold him, you sit down and let him run, you’d be going around four times.” Then the horse took off down the track. “He’s coal black, stands out amongst them, and he’s got a little fire in him and he’s not afraid to use it.”

Depression blues and a rained-out summer

Local ranchers and business people organized the races in 1934, in the committee’s words, “in an effort to overcome the depression blues.” Bill Goodman, Frank Calloway and Stan Draper were among them. They ran the meet until 1937, when the county formed the Fair Board with Tom Bath, a local business owner, as its first chairman. The new track and grandstand followed a year later.

The founding date is not stated the same way everywhere. The tourism office and the county both repeat 1934 but also say the event has been “taking place since the 1920s.” The tourism office calls it the oldest horse racing event in Nevada. An undated passage on the committee’s history page counts one meet as the 72nd. The Ely Times wrote that 2020 would have been the 86th year.

In 1950 the races were rained out, and the loss hurt the event financially. A group of social clubs took it over as the Pony Express Committee. In 1954 the local Elks Lodge, which had been heavily involved and had a large membership, took it from them. The committee’s history says the lodge ran the races “for the next 40 years until 1993,” when it could no longer turn a profit. In that time the Elks put nearly $250,000 of race proceeds into the fairgrounds: new restrooms, a pari-mutuel building, a paddock and jockey room, and several new horse barns.

Another group of volunteers, working with Agricultural District 13, kept the meets going until 2000. That year the races were judged no longer practical or profitable and were discontinued. Through those decades the races had run alongside the county fair, the 4-H livestock show and auction, and a barbecue and dance put on by the local Cattlewomen’s Association. On those weekends the fairgrounds were packed with people. The committee writes that losing the races hit those events and the town hard.

The Elks try again

In 2006 Ely Elks Lodge No. 1469 set out to revive the sport. At the time the only live race meet in the state was at Elko, along with mule races in Winnemucca. New legislation made money available for purses, and the White Pine Horse Races were organized once more. According to one spokesman, the 2006 meet drew the largest crowd the fairgrounds had ever seen. “We ran out of beer and food items and had to get more in a hurry,” he said.

The Elks ran the races with Agricultural District 13 until 2010, when staffing the event became too difficult. That year community volunteers headed by Robert Bartlett formed the White Pine Horse Race Committee and kept the meet alive with seed money left over from the Elks. Later race proceeds paid for a better sound system, an announcing booth, a testing barn and horse walkers. The Agricultural District added modern metal stalls. In a passage for a year it does not name, the committee’s history lists Jim Bath, son of Tom Bath, as pari-mutuel manager.

On July 30, 2020, the committee postponed the races to 2021 because of the COVID pandemic. Committee chairwoman Marietta Henry said many volunteers had grave concerns about working under those conditions. “We must protect our citizens and the reserve funding we have, so we may have horse racing in White Pine in the years to come,” she said. The 2022 meet ran August 19 through 21, and its Quarter Horse Stakes purse passed $18,000, the largest in the history of the races.