Local News

Leominster puts the kibosh on horse racing plan

The proposed horse and dog racing track was slated to be built at a long-closed landfill.

August 2, 2025

1 minute to read

Leominster City Council members have shot down plans for a horse and dog racing track in the city.

On July 14, the council voted 8 to 1 to pass an amendment to the city’s ordinances that bans horse and dog racing, according to a MassLive report. At the meeting, the council also unanimously voted against a zoning overlay district for a proposed horse race track called “The Fairgrounds.”

The track would have been part of an entertainment complex built on a defunct local landfill. It was slated to include a restaurant, a sports bar, an event space, stables, a horse paddock, and simulcast betting.

For months, Leominster residents have pushed back against the proposed horse track in the community. Supporters argued that it would have helped the state’s struggling equine industry and provided a welcome financial boost to the city.

“There’s no appetite for [horse racing] here in Leominster. I think [residents] have been clear and loud…they don’t want this in the town,” Ward 2 Councilor and Council Vice President Pauline Cormier said at the meeting.

Leominster resident Lisa Nugent, who operates the Facebook group No Horse Racing in Leominster, Massachusetts, petitioned the council in March to prohibit horse and dog racing and associated betting in the city. She told MassLive there was relief following the July 14 vote.

“For anyone who really looked at all the copious amounts of information available on all of it, it was somewhat overwhelming and absurd that we were having to fight this proposal at all,” Nugent told the outlet.

There’s no word on what will happen to the Leominster landfill, which has been closed since 1982.