NORTHVILLE (WWJ) -- For 80 years, Northville Downs has served as popular entertainment and gambling hub for horse racing in Metro Detroit.
But now, Michigan’s first — and last — nighttime harness racing track has officially closed its doors, having running its final race on Saturday, Feb. 3.
Dubbed 'The Sport of Kings,’ horse racing was once a billion-dollar industry, but has been in decline for decades. With the boom of casinos and online gambling, the need to go to the horse racing track to place bets quickly diminished.
97.1 The Ticket's Mike Valenti told WWJ’s Brian Fisher on The Daily J podcast that he believes the lack of a central governing body is a main reason for the decline.
"It's like college football, the lack of a central governing body, and a true commissioner of horse racing, it kills the sport,” Valenti said. “They all run their own fiefdom, they all have their own rules, they all implement things their own way, nobody wants to give up control. So you have no regulations."
Northville Downs first opened in 1944, and operated among the six other Michigan tracks for many years.
At the time, placing a bet at the horse racing track was the only way to legally gamble in the state. Several decades and billions of dollars later, the Michigan Lottery launched in 1972, and things began to change for the once-thriving form of entertainment.
Casinos and eventually online betting came as additional blows, and by 2018, Northville Downs was the only track remaining in Michigan.
That is until this past weekend, when the final races were run at the Metro Detroit mainstay, and the doors were closed for good.
There were initially plans by ownership to move the track to Plymouth Township, where they had purchased a 125-acre parcel of land.
But, after around a year of negotiations with the township, the Board of Trustees recently voted to pull the plug on project — though they hope it may still find a new home down the line.
As for the future of the Northville site, the 48-acre property is slated for a $300 million redevelopment, where it will be turned into a mix used space.