Page 131 - July 2016

Remington Park ended its 2016 Quarter Horse meet in a big way on June 4 with eight stakes races on the closing card. Following the lead of security measures put into place at the Breeder’s Cup, Remington Park hired Global Security Corporation to put some extra eyes on the backside. The Oklahoma Quarter Horse Racing Association made the extra security processes possible with financial assistance for the program.
“Security and surveillance are obviously very important in our industry,” said Matt Vance, Remington Park’s Vice President of Operations. “We’ve instituted more surveillance on our backstretch, and we continue to add more and more every year. Comparing it to the casino, it’s a little harder to get surveillance over an 85- acre backstretch. We have been meeting with Roy Williams and his team at Global Security Corporation about doing some things for us in our casino. They lease out professional security guards with law enforcement backgrounds for special events. Most of them are still in law enforcement or are retired.”
For the stakes-filled closing card, Remington Park hired 22 agents from Global Securities Corporation. On race day, an agent stayed with each Remington Park Futurity horse and each of the 12 Remington Park Championship horses for continuous supervision from 2:00 p.m. until the races ran that evening. The agents were with
photo © Dustin Orona Photography
the horses for about eight hours to provide extra security and added integrity for the races.
“The number one reason that we did this was for pure security purposes and to provide an officer with each finalist in the Futurity and the Invitational,” Vance said. “In doing so, we wanted to make sure that the security guards knew what was allowed during the course of the day. I believe that it went off really well. It was received really well. ”
Remington Park made their security plans known to all the racing participants and also contacted backside veterinarians, who were required to turn in all race-day medication applicators and materials such as needles and syringes for testing. Since the typical law enforcement officer isn’t exposed to horse racing on a daily basis, the members of the security detail received a crash course on racehorse care.
“Remington was our first horse job, but not our last one, hopefully,” said Roy Williams, president of Global Securities Corporation. “We provided about 20 guys that sat in front of the stalls and made sure that there wasn’t any illegal activity going on and that everything was being done up to code.”
Williams said he befriended many of the security guards while playing for the Dallas Cowboys and Cincinnati Bengals, which piqued his interest in the profession and eventually led to his forming Global Security Corporation in
October of 2012 with Bill McClure, who retired as Assistant Commissioner of the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety in 2008.
“When I retired, I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” Williams said. “I was like a lot of other athletes that didn’t know what to do after being on a schedule since I was eight years old. I hadn’t had a lot of idle time.”
A collegiate All-American while playing for the University of Oklahoma and selected for the NFL’s Pro-Bowl five times, Williams first invested in real estate, and his cousin introduced him to McClure, who was also a real estate investor that had previously owned a security company.
“We founded our company in 2012, got our first clients in 2013, and haven’t looked back,” Williams said. “We started with about 20 guards and today we have more than 700 employees, and we operate in 15 different states.”
“This went so well and I do think that we will do it in future meets – not necessarily just on the big races,” Vance said. “I think it’s just as important to do it on an evening when there are 10 overnight races. We did this for the
first time on the biggest night of the year. We definitely want a level playing field, and I think transparency is part of that. I think being as transparent as possible and letting the betting public and the participants know that we care is important. I can’t thank Debbie Schauf and her organization enough for helping us.”
Ramped Up
SECURITY
Remington Park implemented extra security measures to close the 2016 meet.
by Jennifer K. Hancock
SPEEDHORSE, July 2016 129