The group that puts on the spring and fall Foxfield Races in Albemarle County is suing the entities that own the racetrack, in a bid to force the sale of the property.
This one is going to make a couple of sets of lawyers a ton of money, but other than that, you know.
The owners, Cassiopeia Foundation, which was founded in 1944 by an oil tycoon, W. Alton “Pete” Jones, and Foxfield Land Preservation LLC – which is headed up by Zach Miller, the great-grandson of the tycoon, and Miller’s wife, Sara, an executive board member of Virginia Thoroughbred Association – put out a release on Friday that got news of the lawsuit, filed on Aug. 13 in Albemarle County Circuit Court, into the public domain.
The release highlights a litany of safety issues for spectators, riders and horses that Zach Miller, a champion steeplechase racer and horse trainer, said were brought up privately to Foxfield Racing LLC, which operates the races under the terms of a $1-a-year lease.
“Over the past several months, we have become increasingly concerned that the race railing, observation tower and other infrastructure have fallen into a dangerously degraded state,” Miller wrote in an open letter to the Charlottesville community provided with the release.
“We made multiple requests for maintenance records and a qualified repair plan, and even offered to help fund the necessary repair work,” Miller wrote. “Our family’s non-profit Cassiopeia Foundation is willing to make a multimillion-dollar charitable investment not only in repairs, but in capital improvements and new staff – to work with Foxfield Racing to establish the full-time, professionalized operation needed to prevent the recurrence of safety issues and ignite a new renaissance for Foxfield and the community it serves.
“But our concerns about the safety of spectators, riders and horses were met with inaction, dismissiveness and outright hostility. And our proposal that offered funding was rejected out of hand,” Miller wrote.
Miller said, in a quote provided in the release, that the defendants “believe wholeheartedly that the evidence will show that this is a retaliatory action, arising from our decision to raise concerns about safety, and we deny ever making any promise to sell the property to Foxfield Racing.”
We reached out to Foxfield Racing LLC to get that outfit’s side of the story, and got no response.
Foxfield Racing’s executive director, Marian Fife, did provide a statement to Cville Right Now, the news website associated with WINA-1070AM, the Charlottesville-based radio station that mixes local news and a run of MAGA talk shows.
“This decision was made after careful consideration and reflects the Board of Directors’ responsibility to safeguard the long-term future of Foxfield Racing and its charitable mission. We believe the legal process is the appropriate forum to address the matters raised in our complaint, and we intend to respect that process,” Fife told the station.
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Chris Graham
