Swan Ranch Horse Palace prepares to open next month
May 22—CHEYENNE — Wyoming Horse Racing LLC is nearing the grand opening of the state's largest off-track horse race betting facility in Laramie County in less than one month.
The 30,000-square-foot facility is the result of a $25 million investment from WHR and will offer 140 full- and part-time jobs, in addition to 150 temporary construction jobs, WHR officials said. They estimated the new entertainment facility will generate $2.6 million annually for Wyoming state, city and county budgets.
This week, the facility, called the Swan Ranch Horse Palace, celebrated its "topping out," the placement of the last structural beam, signaling the final stages of the building's construction and its rapidly approaching opening.
With the main building nearly complete, construction crews are working to complete the interior and touching up the exterior for the anticipated June 19 opening day.
When complete, patrons coming through the main entrance will see a grand statue of a horse lowering its head to drink water. To the left, an area will be filled with gaming machines, what WHR calls the "player's club," and to the right, a long smooth curved bar will sweep along the back wall before meeting an area that will be a restaurant, primarily a steakhouse.
Straight ahead from the main entrance will be an entertainment stage, where WHR hopes to host local musicians and other events.
In addition, the facility will also be home to Wyoming's second Dunkin' Donuts location. The only other location is on F.E. Warren Air Force Base.
The high ceilings of the building are painted blue to represent the clear blue skies of Wyoming, and are crossed with large exposed wooden beams — an homage to horse gaming halls of the past. Architectural design of the building was completed by Cheyenne-based Pouppirt Architects & Construction.
WHR opened its ninth Horse Palace in downtown Cheyenne in the summer of 2022. This 10th location, although situated in Laramie County, is primarily intended to draw the larger Colorado market to the south.
"Cheyenne is somewhere between 60,000 and 70,000 people, but our target market is the 1.2 million within, you know, just 45 minutes," said WHR director of marketing Stephan Gibson. "So that's where we're headed, that's our target market."
He said 75% of the marketing for the facility has been targeted toward a Colorado audience, leveraging advertisements in local media outlets and working to bring musicians from both the Cheyenne and Fort Collins, Colorado, areas to the venue.
The nearest competitors of the Swan Ranch Horse Palace are in Black Hawk, Colorado, a small town in the mountains 30 miles west of Denver.
Steven Jimenez, WHR executive general manager, said, "We're a Wyoming business, and we want to keep bringing out-of-state dollars into Wyoming to grow, you know, the purses and the agriculture and everything in the horse racing industry, so that's what we're trying to do."
Near Evanston, WHR is constructing a similar facility, though slightly smaller, to serve a similar purpose: bring out-of-state dollars to the Wyoming economy and the Wyoming horse racing industry. The Evanston Horse Palace, however, is largely targeting the Utah market.
The entertainment center only takes up a portion of the nearly 40-acre property WHR owns at the Cheyenne Logistics Hub, formerly known as the Swan Ranch Industrial Park. Jimenez said that, if this location goes well, there could be potential to expand the facility or possibly pursue other ventures on the other part of the land.
"Colorado's Front Range communities are about to experience a whole new level of entertainment," said Nick Hughes, president of WHR in a press release. "The Swan Ranch Horse Palace is a cutting-edge and sophisticated gaming and entertainment experience — right on the doorstep of the Front Range. Convenience, western hospitality and easy wins await just a short drive north."
Jimenez said he envisions this Horse Palace as a place where people don't come to just to use the gaming machines, but instead come for a well-rounded entertainment experience.
"If you only have machines, it's not a complete entertainment (experience). Because you're going to have people that are just going to come and go eat, people are going to come just to watch entertainment, or they might do both," Jimenez said. "Our goal is to do all of that."
Gibson said he hopes to have entertainment acts on most Friday and Saturday nights, and broadcast sports or other events on the 125-inch drop-down screen on other nights.
For customers who are excited by the new Dunkin' Donuts location in the area that they can go to without securing a pass to F.E. Warren, there are a few caveats. The coffee shop will open about two weeks after the facility does, and entrance to the Swan Ranch Horse Palace will be restricted to those age 21 and older. Gibson said he hopes to allow online deliveries at some point in the future, so it can be more accessible to the public.
Noah Zahn is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's local government/business reporter. He can be reached at 307-633-3128 or nzahn@wyomingnews.com. Follow him on X @NoahZahnn.
