In the last three decades, New Mexico racetracks have shuttered and those still standing hold a fraction of the race days they did in the 1990s. Yet across the state, horse racetracks and their accompanying casinos generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue annually — sums of cash so vast that horse racing now constitutes one of the state’s most lucrative businesses.

Overseeing the industry is the New Mexico Racing Commission, a little-known body that has been staffed by some of the state’s most influential residents, ranging from wealthy entrepreneurs and high-profile attorneys to former state lawmakers and courtroom prosecutors. Those commissioners have brokered power and cut business deals with the racetrack executives they oversee, a Searchlight New Mexico investigation found — and the racers and horse trainers who have challenged the NMRC have found themselves banished from the state’s racetracks.

In 2020, a coalition of the state’s racehorse owners and trainers sued the NMRC for allegedly “skimming” millions of dollars in race-day winnings that were supposed to go to racehorse owners. The commission, led at the time by current Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman, responded by cutting off the group’s longstanding sources of funding. When owners and trainers protested, they said they were banned from setting foot at the state’s racetracks. And when they took the matter to court, they said the racing commission banned them from speaking at its public meetings.

Such retaliation against critics has become a mainstay of New Mexico’s racing scene, according to horse trainers, breeders and owners interviewed for this story.

Earlier this year, the conflict drew national attention. In response to the NMRC’s treatment of its critics, the Kentucky Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, which oversees the country’s preeminent horse race, forbade all five of New Mexico’s horse racetracks from betting on the Kentucky Derby. Following that decision, horsemen’s associations in Arizona, Ohio, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania quickly enacted bans of their own in solidarity.

“They’re just bullying everybody around,” KHBPA President Rick Hiles told Searchlight. “That’s pretty dirty tactics to take against horsemen. We didn’t want to be involved in that kind of mess out there.”

The members of the New Mexico Racing Commission were unfazed by the move.

“A huge conflict of interest”

Perhaps no one personifies the overlap between New Mexico politics and sport as much as Sam Bregman — a former Albuquerque city councilor, state Democratic Party Chair, deputy state auditor, NBA Development League team owner, racing commission chairman, Gaming Control Board commissioner and, currently, District Attorney for Bernalillo County.

Before Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham appointed Bregman to fill the vacant district attorney’s seat last year, she appointed him to the New Mexico Racing Commission. Bregman served concurrently as a commissioner for the Gaming Control Board, the state agency that oversees gambling across the state. When disputes about Bregman’s racing commission came before the Gaming Control Board, Bregman was able to cast a vote there, as well.

Bregman resigned from the racing and gaming commissions in early 2023, when his term as DA began. At the time, he vowed not to seek election for another term as district attorney. Within months of his appointment, however, he launched his election campaign — a campaign that has largely been funded by the racing industry he once regulated.

To date, Bregman has raised nearly $500,000, mounting the most cash-rich campaign in the state for this election cycle. Contributions came in large part from businesses and individuals tied to horse racing, including $11,000 from Ruidoso Downs and $2,500 from the Sunland Park Racetrack and Casino, according to campaign finance reports.

One of his campaign’s largest benefactors is Paul Blanchard, CEO of the Albuquerque Downs Racetrack and Casino and a University of New Mexico regent who previously owned a racehorse named Bregman. Blanchard and his businesses gave a total of $17,500 to Bregman’s campaign.

Blanchard declined to comment when reached by phone.

Since leading the racing commission, the Bregman family’s profile has risen nationally in the world of horse racing.

Alex Bregman — Sam’s son and a starting third baseman for the Houston Astros — started a horse-racing company, Bregman Family Racing LLC, while his father led the New Mexico Racing Commission. One of his horses is seemingly named after his father, who said people should not read into the name: Governor Sam.

Alex Bregman’s company has jointly owned racehorses with a New Mexico racetrack executive, as well as with the current chair of the state racing commission.

“It’s a huge conflict of interest,” New Mexico Horsemen’s Association President Paul Jenson said. A sitting commissioner should not share a financial asset with someone they hold regulatory power over, Jenson and others say — especially one as significant as a racehorse, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars and win much more.

Racing Commission Chair Billy G. Smith and Executive Director Ismael Trejo did not respond to requests for comment. Richard Bustamante, an attorney representing the commission, told Searchlight the shared investments should not be considered a conflict of interest because the horse racing industry in New Mexico consists of “a small group of people.”

How horse racing officials are connected

A history of scandal

For more than a decade, controversy has tarnished the state’s horse racing industry.

In 2012, New Mexico’s racetracks were considered the most dangerous in the country for horses and jockeys, largely due to lax oversight on drug use. The state imposed stricter regulations, but the problem has never gone away. As recently as last year, the governor admonished the racing commission for failing to address rampant drug use in the sport.

“Horse racing in New Mexico has a long and distinguished history. I am sad to say that it appears that legacy has been utterly and irreparably tarnished by the widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs,” Lujan Grisham wrote in a 2023 letter to the NMRC. “While this commission may not have created these problems, the commission has completely failed to take proactive measures to fix or address the problems in any meaningful way.”

Longstanding concerns over the industry extend beyond doping allegations.

When the Albuquerque Downs racetrack was widely criticized for falling into disrepair nearly 15 years ago, track officials began eyeing a move away from its location inside the state fairgrounds.

The State Fair Commission stepped in and offered the racetrack a deal: Stay at the fairgrounds and get the OK to build a new $20 million, 52,000-square-foot casino with twice as many slot machines as their current space held. State Fair Commissioner David “Hossie” Sanchez, who would later sit on the state racing commission, was one of the deciding votes in approving the 25-year lease that kept the track in Albuquerque.

Critics at the time decried the agreement as a sweetheart deal, saying that it eased the burden on groundskeepers who had let areas of the property fall into disrepair while also placing more maintenance costs on taxpayers.

By 2013, the FBI was reportedly looking into the deal, as well as at the ties between racetrack executives and government officials. The FBI did not respond to requests for comment.

That wasn’t the first time New Mexico horse racing had piqued the interest of federal investigators.

In 2010, the $1 million prize in Ruidoso’s All American Futurity race went to the colt Mr. Piloto and his owner, José Treviño Morales. Three years later, the FBI announced its agents had found him working with his brothers — leaders of Mexico’s deadly Los Zetas drug cartel — in a “complex conspiracy to launder millions of dollars in illicit Los Zetas drug trafficking proceeds to purchase, train, breed, and race American quarter horses in the United States.”

Treviño Morales was sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiring to funnel millions of dollars of drug money into New Mexico horse racing. A Ruidoso horse trainer, Fernando Solis Garcia, was sentenced to more than 13 years in prison for his role as a middleman in the cartel’s money laundering operation.

The $9 million question

By the time Bregman assumed control of the New Mexico Racing Commission, the industry was in need of some stability. Multiple racetracks had shuttered and the Covid-19 pandemic was straining the already-limited number of race days.

Under his leadership, though, sparks flew. The New Mexico Racing Commission faced a flurry of litigation. In suit after suit, the New Mexico Horsemen’s Association alleged that the commission was stealing money from racehorse owners and trainers, and retaliating against members who spoke out in protest.

In late 2020, the New Mexico Horsemen’s Association — a coalition of New Mexico’s racehorse owners and trainers — filed a lawsuit against the racing commission alleging that it had spent more than a decade redirecting money from race-day winnings to pay for operational expenses such as jockey insurance at the state’s five racetracks. To date, they alleged, the commission had taken some $9 million from horsemen this way.

Months later, the racing commission took aim at the horsemen’s association where it would hurt the most: the pocketbook.

In early 2021, the commission cut off several fees collected by the NMHA, including a one-percent portion of race-day winnings, a $5 starter fee from racers and a $2 advocacy fee. Bregman minced no words when presiding over the decision – when the commission determined that the horsemen’s one-percent fee brought in $500,000 to $600,000 each year “with no authority under the law to do so,” Bregman announced he was putting an end to “the New Mexico Horsemen’s Association’s gravy train.”

The Horsemen’s Association, for its part, said the fees were not mandatory and that horse owners had the choice to opt out. Other groups, including its counterpart in Kentucky, do not charge membership fees.

The group filed another lawsuit against the New Mexico Racing Commission and Sam Bregman, saying the commission was punishing the group by barring its members from attending or speaking out at public racing commission meetings.

“You can’t stick your hand in the cookie jar,” Jenson, the NMHA president, said. “The commission has taken that money out of that account with us kicking and screaming that they can’t do that.”

Several of the lawsuits are still ongoing. High-profile attorneys, including Bregman’s former law partner, routinely represent the racing commission in court.

Within months of the litigation, NMHA members say, racinos banned them from the premises. Trainers say it’s left them in the lurch, largely unable to work.

“Training racehorses is expensive,” Adam Archuleta, an Albuquerque horse trainer and New Mexico Horsemen’s Association board member, said. Archuleta said the commission also banned his wife, who owns two racehorses, from the state’s racetracks. Their horses have won nearly $100,000 throughout their careers but currently cannot race. “To keep a horse in training that’s not going to race — I mean, I’m not a rich guy. We’ll go broke in a hurry.”

To trainers like Archuleta, it feels like retaliation for speaking out against the state commission.

“I’ve never had a positive medication test. I’ve never had any fines or fees or anything. I’ve always been in good standing with the track and the casinos.” he said. “The casinos banned me from racing horses solely because I’m part of the Horseman’s Association … the casinos and the Racing Commission work hand-in-hand.”