Turf Paradise Lockout: Owner Jerry Simms Retakes the Track as the Racing Season Nears

PHOENIX

It started with the televisions going dark. On Saturday afternoon at Turf Paradise, the simulcast screens suddenly went off, patrons were told to leave the premises, and signs went up on the doors: TP Racing, as owner of the property, had retaken possession, and entry was to be authorized by TP Racing. By evening, the track that has anchored Arizona horse racing since 1956 was shut down — its employees locked out by the landlord.

The landlord is Jerry Simms, the longtime track owner, acting through TP Racing, an entity he majority-owns. The locked-out party is Gary Hartunian's Skyfall 7 — the company that holds the racing permit and has operated the track under a two-year lease from Simms for about the past 11 months. According to the Paulick Report, which broke the story Saturday night, the move was an exercise of Simms's rights under that lease agreement, and it landed like a hammer at the end of a week that had already gone sideways.

How Saturday unfolded

Track security ordered employees to leave the offices Saturday afternoon, and signs posted at the facility stated that TP Racing, the property owner, had retaken possession of the premises, according to Horse Racing Nation reporting. The simulcast operation — the lifeblood of a track between live meets — was switched off, and the building was cleared.

Word traveled fast through Arizona racing. Leroy Gessman, executive director of the Arizona Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association, notified his board Saturday afternoon by email, a copy of which was obtained by the Paulick Report. Gessman wrote that HBPA president Robert Budoff had received notice from Simms that he "has exercised his rights under the lease to lock Skyfall 7 out of the property at 1501 West Bell Rd." The result, Gessman wrote: "the track is currently shut down, and all Skyfall employees are prohibited from entering the property."

The email also carried the next move: "Hartunian indicated he will attempt to secure an injunction," Gessman wrote — "however, because Monday is a holiday, legal action cannot be taken until Tuesday." In other words, whatever happens next in court, the track sits dark through the weekend and the holiday.

A week that went from bad to worse

Saturday's lockout didn't come out of nowhere. It capped a week of resignations and revelations that left the track's leadership hollowed out.

It began with general manager Tom Ludt, who confirmed October 5 that he had resigned over "philosophical differences" with Hartunian. Ludt had been instrumental in putting together the Skyfall 7 lease deal and overseeing the operation's first year — a year in which, by his own account earlier this year, paid attendance had doubled and on-track wagering was up 24 percent. Then the father-son team of Freddy and Dylon Alvarez, who maintained the turf and dirt tracks, also resigned. According to Horse Racing Nation, eight additional management officials departed Thursday, citing disagreements with Hartunian over the direction of the business.

Thursday's regularly scheduled Arizona Racing Commission meeting made the disarray public. Hartunian told commissioners he had named longtime assistant general manager Dave Johnson as the new GM — only for commission chairman James Padish to inform him that the commission had received written confirmation that very morning that Johnson, among others, had also resigned. "If he resigned, that's news to me," Hartunian said, per the Paulick Report.

The commission meeting surfaced a second crisis: money. Gessman told commissioners the HBPA had concerns about the lack of personnel in key positions, but was more worried about hundreds of thousands of dollars that had gone missing from the horsemen's purse fund. "Mr. Hartunian has put $360,000 of it back," Gessman said, "but we, as of this morning, are still owed $182,000." Horse Racing Nation later reported the remaining balance was paid on October 9. Separately, Hartunian was suspended by New Mexico stewards on September 17 over an alleged unpaid financial obligation of $3,467.19 involving purse money owed to the minor son of trainer Justin Evans, with his licenses suspended pending payment, per the Paulick Report.

Hartunian, for his part, told the commission everything was under control. "All the bills are paid, the utilities are paid, so we've got a little dispute with the landlord (Simms) going forward," he said. "But other than that, we can have a good, great meet." Two days later, that "little dispute" became a lockout.

The injunction wait

Neither principal was talking Saturday night. Reached by the Paulick Report, Simms declined to comment. Hartunian could not be reached by telephone and did not respond to a text message, the outlet reported.

The legal calendar is what it is: with Monday a holiday, Hartunian's planned injunction bid can't be heard until Tuesday at the earliest. That leaves at least three days of limbo — and a track whose employees are barred from the property — with a hard deadline approaching. Horses are expected to start arriving October 19, just over a week away. A track inspection by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority is scheduled for October 16. And the 80-day 2026-27 Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse meeting is supposed to open November 27.

There is at least one possible off-ramp being discussed. According to Horse Racing Nation reporting, Scottsdale businessman Joey Platts — a minority investor in Skyfall 7 — could be involved in an effort to buy out Hartunian and restore the former management team. Whether that survives a weekend lockout is anyone's guess.

The longer fight over the land

The lease fight sits on top of a deeper dispute about the property itself. Simms, 80, has said for years that he wants to retire and sell the Turf Paradise property, according to Horse Racing Nation. He has insisted he wants to preserve racing — but the track sits in the Deer Valley section of north Phoenix, where, as HRN has noted, the land would command bigger dollars from commercial developers.

Hartunian — a Southern California real estate developer who operates the Rockingham Ranch racing stable — wants to buy enough of the land to keep Turf Paradise going. But in April he told Axios Phoenix that he and Simms could not agree on a price, and said that if he cannot cut a deal with Simms, he would build a new Turf Paradise somewhere else in Phoenix. The lease he is operating under expires next year.

Even before this weekend, the season was shrinking: last month the track was forced to reduce its 2026-27 racing calendar from 104 days to 80, a move ratified by a 4-0 vote of the racing commission. And the operation's pitch for the future included a new sports-betting partnership with Caesars Sportsbook, announced in a track press release as part of the "we are racing" message — a message that now reads very differently with the doors locked.

What Tuesday decides

Strip away the resignations and the purse-fund fight and the land-value chess, and the question is stark: does Arizona have a functioning racetrack on November 27? Skyfall 7 spent its first year pouring money into a neglected property — barn repairs, plumbing, racing-surface upgrades to meet federal safety demands, fresh paint on rooms that had gone years without it. That work is real. But a track is also people: a general manager, a track-maintenance crew, a racing office — and right now, per the HBPA, none of those people are allowed through the door.

Tuesday's courtroom will tell us whether Hartunian gets back in. Until then, Arizona racing is holding its breath — and a 70-year-old track is dark on a Saturday night.

Saturday was a rough day across the Valley: a dust wall and FAA ground stop snarled Phoenix Sky Harbor earlier in the day. And the storm behind that disruption — the remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel — is still moving through the region.

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