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HORSE RACING is in his
DN
Eugene Joyce’s love for horse racing stems from his father’s devotion to the sport.
by Diane Rice
Insome ways, Eugene Trotter “E.T.” Joyce’s background seems incompatible with his Wyoming cowboy persona and a 30-year career
in Wyoming’s horse racing industry. Born in Manhattan, New York — which he jokingly refers to as “a little island just east of here” — his family, including a dozen brothers and sisters, moved to the Chicago area in the 1970s. There, his father worked as president and part owner of Arlington Park racetrack through the late ’80s, when Joe, the elder Joyce, bought Wyoming Downs and moved out west to Evanston.
Eugene’s horse-loving brother, Mike —
on-air television talent at TVG who lives near Long Beach, California — describes Eugene as
a chameleon of sorts. “Here’s this kid who was born in New York, went to a Jesuit college in the Midwest, lived in Chicago, then in New York City as a young man,” he says. “He worked in sports marketing and was everything from a sailor on Long Island Sound to a volleyball player on Manhattan Beach [California] and he showed
up in his 30s to help our parents at Wyoming Downs as they got older. He loved horse racing. He wanted to be a part; it was in his blood.”
HIS BACK STORY
Born fourth oldest of 13 children to Joe and Elizabeth Joyce, Eugene attended Holy Family High School on Long Island. After the move
to Chicago, he attended Marquette University, graduating in 1981 with a history degree.
He worked in TV and sports marketing for Host Communications, Turner Broadcasting and Madison Square Garden Network, then moved to the West Coast, where he sold radio
advertising for the University of Southern California football program until 1990.
“That’s when I got the call from my father asking if I wanted to spend the summer in Wyoming,” he says. “I went out there thinking I was just going to be there for the summer and fell in love with horse racing and Wyoming. Then I just fell in love.”
Eugene’s brother Mike, the caboose on the Joyce train and nearly 20 years Eugene’s junior, says, “Eugene came back to Wyoming in chinos and penny loafers, and within a week he’s got a full beard and he’s roping cattle. He wears ostrich- skin boots with a cowboy hat and drives an F-150 pickup. He can adapt to any lifestyle, and he does it in a way where he doesn’t just toe the water; he jumps in with both feet and with no fear.”
But Eugene’s new-found cowboy persona almost lost him his chance at romance with
his now wife Karen, a teacher and the sister
of a friend who was an Evanston city planner. When the friend tried to set the two up, Karen promptly said she wasn’t interested in any cowboys. But when her brother told her Eugene was from New York City, Eugene became a kind of refugee from back East, out in the Wild West. “Since then, it’s been magical, and the greatest adventure I’ve ever been on!” Eugene says.
The relationship did take some give and take, though. “You talk about a clash in cultures,” he says, “School teachers are off every weekend, every holiday, and all summer long. Us race trackers work on the weekend, we
work on the holidays, and we definitely work all summer long. But somehow, it’s all worked. Love is a powerful force of nature.”
ON THE ROAD AND BACK
Eugene worked with Joe at Wyoming Downs for nine years, until Joe sold the track in 1998. After that, Eugene worked as assistant general manager at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Texas; general manager of SunRay
Park and Casino in Farmington, New Mexico; interim general manager at Remington Park
in Oklahoma City; and, from 2005–2010, as president and general manager of Turf Paradise in Phoenix, Arizona.
In 2011, while at the Race Track Industry Program (RTIP) symposium in Tucson, Arizona, Eugene serendipitously bumped into Charlie Moore, executive director of the Wyoming Pari- Mutuel Commission. “Charlie told me that the Wyoming Downs operator was going bankrupt and there was no live racing at all in Wyoming, so he hoped I’d think about coming back and getting things up and going again,” Eugene says.
“My wife’s family lives in Evanston, and so it was a chance for us to get back home to Wyoming,” he continued. “We’d bought a place here when we first got married and have had it since.”
BUILDING WYOMING RACING
Because the owners wanted what Eugene thought was too much for Wyoming Downs, he started leasing fairgrounds that had had live racing. “During the 1990s, in the go-go days
of racing in Wyoming, four were operating: Wyoming Downs in Evanston; Sweetwater Downs in Rock Springs; Energy Downs in Gillette; and the Central Wyoming Fairgrounds
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