ruidoso downs

The open air seating at the racetrack is great. The summer temperatures in Ruidoso make outdoor activities enjoyable and an afternoon spent here is fun and sometimes exciting, depending on your ability to pick the right horses! The food in the seated restaurant is better than being served at your seat, so pay a little more for this amenity. You can still watch the races on the numerous TV's.

We stayed for a week at this condo resort........AWFUL is the best word I can describe this place..they need MAJOR renovations to upgrade their resort...We have to drive at least another 10 minutes to get to the main office to check in and to get any sort of service.Do yourself a favor and DO NOT STAY THERE...find another place...they offered us their sister resort which is just as bad...You need a car to get anywhere and everywhere...The entire staff that I dealt with was sort of nice but you can see they could not do anything....

Ruidoso has a few features that can be reviewed. My review is meant to be generally specific. The casino is nice, clean and average sized. The crowd is friendly and also relatively clean. Don't expect upscale, but you won't be surrounded by truck drivers in their work gear either. The casino floor is alcohol free. There is a bar nearby, so you can take a shot and hit the tables if that's your cup of tea. I hear there is a club also, but at 30 something, I'm over the club scene so I didn't make it there... There is a nice restaurant downstairs that does have a nice upscale feel to it and it comes with a nice view... The town of Ruidoso is small and quaint. It is a great place to get away if you're in many of the small surrounding towns including west Texas and east New Mexico... Small specialty shops, local food, several bars with the getaway town feel and of course the fresh mountain air. Getting up to the mountain can be awful on bad weather days. The drive is long and can be dangerous. Be careful not to consume too much alcohol and make that drive. It is a disaster waiting to happen... The mountain is typically poor for snowboarding and skiing. The runs are few and the rocks and limbs plentiful. You might get lucky and arrive on a day of heavy snow but be prepared to fight the crowds. This mountain seems like the only one for hundreds of miles...

This event takes place once a year every Fall, real Cowboys come from all over West Texas and New Mexico for this three day event. It's a beautiful event for any person. It's an even bigger treat for any Europeans. You get to see real Chuck Wagons Cook Offs, horses dancing and Cowboys. Great for the whole family.

Good luck at the track, and the casino, they are both fairly fun and fair from my experience. The food though is FANTABULOUS! I go just to eat.

Fun times with family! Took the kiddos here for the second time now that they were old enough to place bets...fun watching how competitive they were about which horse!

Took some great scenic pictures even though the horse races had ended. It was nice to walk around and just look. Hopefully to come back when the races are ready to rumble!

Attended biggest Quarter Horse race of the year. Meet new people and had lots of fun. Weather was great and races very exciting.

dirty old crappy food bad seats bad soundsystem no a/c upstairs parking was a mess Ive been to track all over US and this one to be the meca of QH racing sux bad

Love watching the quarter horse races. Ruidosa Downs is a beautiful race track. Excellent food in the club house, friendly staff, and the staff at the betting window are friendly and patient, will help you with your bet if you don't understand exactly how to bet.

We enjoy coming to Ruidoso Downs yearly; however, for whatever reason, when you converse by phone the women do not understand that we want to sit in the Turf Club. Three years in a row ( skipping last year) when my husband has made reservations they have been messed up. So maybe the ladies that answer the phone don't speak Texan, but what is so hard to understand about we want to sit in the Turf Club? I was sitting in the office when my husband made the reservations requesting to sit in the Turf Club, yet we were sold tickets to sit in the grandstands. Not only that, but the female manager wants to get really ugly and debate with you what you requested. So here is what I'm thinking...we are not in to tourism and we only cater to local knowledge " you should have known by prices you weren't getting Turf Club!!!!!" Yes I memorize Turf Club prices day and night because that's what I dream of and think of daily. Or reality is I work at the track and I only think about myself and friends and I don't realize or consider that people come to the races who are unfamiliar with my immediate world so I want to be close minded and unreasonable in my position because my reality doesn't extended beyond my cubicle at Ruidoso Downs. So when you factor out that it was an extremely slow weekend (dead) before the Labor Day festivities and the female manager wants to put up such a heated fuss when she should have been happy to have tourism and customers, putting aside the negatives.... We had a great time with the ladies who served our food and beverages and with other people who were patronizing the establishment. Beverages....a Bloody Mary's were great and so was the food. Bad attitude from management. A manager who can't admit a mistake, a manager who is unprofessional and gets all puffed up and hateful. That's somebody I want to do business with don't you????? Next time we make reservations, we will draw her a picture and give requests in singular. Multi steps and Multi tasking is to difficult for small time girl in a small time community that overlooks her need for basic one step instructions

The racetrack may not be the most modern and up-to-date, but you sure couldn't beat the view! The weather when we went in August was beautiful and there were plenty of good open seats.

The weather in Ruidoso was beautiful..58-73 degrees in August. We had great counter seats to watch the races, and the people employed at the track were very helpful. The only negative was on this particular racing day there were 14 races...all quarter horses. I would have enjoyed some thoroughbred racing.

One can experience horse races with several options available usually Fridays - Mondays. Free seating (no admission charges) in seats close to the track with no roof. A variety of charges for seats that are under a roof within views of small monitors to see full race action. Visiting the website for info plus contacting via phone allowed us to reserve our seats months in advance. We choose to reserve seats that have a counter facing the track. There are several elevated rows to choose. The 1st row (A) has a lot of foot traffic in front of it. We had seats in I section which is at finish line. Foot traffic did not distract too often. Nicer breeze the lower one sits. (call track for info on sitting upstairs inside - we have not sat there). Sports Bar/grill on site but not within view of the races. Standard snack bar food. Fun times!

We have been visiting Ruidoso for many years and we ALWAYS go to the races. It's a lot of fun for all of us. We always arrive in time to have lunch... Usually sandwiches, nachos, shrimp cocktail... Etc. In the past years the food has been fairly good- not gourmet by any means- but we were always satisfied. This week we were disgusted by the food. A hamburger had to be returned because it was so in edible, the cheese on a cheese tray had an unusual taste that left us frightened to eat anymore from the platter. The only decent thing served was the shrimp cocktail- and although the shrimp were large and cooked well- they had a "funky" taste. We never expect a gourmet experience when we go to the races but this trip we all left with empty pockets and empty stomachs.