Oaklawn’s galloping tourist trade
Gaming areas, a luxury hotel, a spa and an event center contribute to the evolution of Oaklawn from a racetrack to a destination resort.
Louis Cella sits in the lobby of the hotel at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort in Hot Springs, watching as visitors check in on a busy Thursday afternoon. “I like to sit here and study the people when they come in,” says Cella, Oaklawn’s president and the fourth generation of his family to head the business. “I want to see how they’re welcomed, how they’re being treated. It thrills me to see a long line of people waiting to check in.”
Though the Cella family has been involved with Oaklawn since its founding in 1904, it was Louis Cella and his wife, Rochelle, an Arkansas native, who decided to take Arkansas tourism to the next level.
Louis Cella, born in St. Louis in 1965, has been coming to Hot Springs since he was a toddler. I have memories of him standing next to his father, Charles, in the winner’s circle on Arkansas Derby Day more than four decades ago when I covered thoroughbred racing. He majored in political science at Washington and Lee University and graduated from the Virginia school in 1987. Three years later, he earned his law degree from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
The Cella family is among the largest owners of real estate in downtown St. Louis. Louis Cella went to work for the family company, Southwestern Enterprises Inc., after law school. He became active in civic affairs in both St. Louis and Arkansas, serving as board chairman of the St. Louis Municipal Opera and board chairman of what’s now the Winthrop Rockefeller Cancer Institute in Little Rock.
While his brother John concentrated on the real estate side of things in St. Louis, Louis became a major player in the racing world. He has been a director of the Thoroughbred Racing Association, the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, the Grayson Jockey Club Research Foundation, and the Thoroughbred Racing and Protective Bureau. He’s a steward of the prestigious Jockey Club.
For decades, Arkansas has promoted its hunting and fishing opportunities. Arkansas branded itself as the Natural State and began to describe what at the time were little more than fishing camps as “resorts.”
Several years ago, Cella and his wife made the decision to spend the tens of millions of dollars necessary to create a true resort, the kind that would attract wealthy visitors from Dallas, Houston and other large metropolitan areas.
Charles Cella died at age 81 on Dec. 6, 2017. Two weeks later, Louis Cella was named president of Oaklawn. He wasted no time.
In April 2018, Oaklawn annnounced the most significant change in its racing schedule since World War II. Rather than ending the race meet with the Arkansas Derby in April, the 2019 season would run through the first Saturday in May, the day of the Kentucky Derby.
Then, in November 2018, Arkansas voters approved a constitutional amendment to allow full casino gaming at Oaklawn and Southland (a dog track at the time) in West Memphis. The amendment authorized new casinos at Pine Bluff and Russellville.
The Quapaw Nation, which funded the effort, wanted to build a casino at Pine Bluff (Saracen Casino Resort) and decided to let the state’s two existing pari-mutuel gambling locations at Hot Springs and West Memphis in on the action. That would prevent their political opposition.
Thirteen days after the election, Oaklawn announced a major expansion that would include expanded gaming areas, a luxury hotel, a spa and an event center.
Louis Cella smiles at the thought of how his father would have reacted to the amount of money being spent had he lived. Oaklawn publicly released a figure of $100 million, but the expansion is thought to have cost far more than that.
“We wanted to build something special for the state of Arkansas,” Cella says. “Rochelle and I have been fortunate to stay in some really nice hotels, and we picked up ideas along the way. Our goal was for people to come to this hotel and suddenly feel as if they were in Chicago or New York rather than Arkansas. Oaklawn is among the best tracks in the country, so its hotel should be among the best hotels in the country. That was my philosophy as we designed this place.
“This is a resort with something for everyone. You can get everything here from a hot dog for lunch to steak and lobster tail for dinner. We added a world-class spa and additional upscale dining because that’s what resorts do. We want people to realize what we have here. You previously had to go all the way to Dallas to experience the kind of spa we now have in Hot Springs.”
Earlier this year, it was announced that Oaklawn’s Astral Spa received a four-star ranking from Forbes Travel Guide. It’s the only spa in the state to receive the ranking and one of just 201 spas in the world to achieve the honor. The 198-room hotel is one of just two in the state with a Forbes recommended rating.
“No other venue in the region has a four-star spa despite calling themselves resorts and spas,” Cella says. “We’re the only one.”
“Louis has worked to elevate the tourism product in the whole state of Arkansas,” says Wayne Smith, Oaklawn’s general manager. “Others have seen what we’ve done here and are making their own capital investments.”
In 2019, Cella was named the Arkansas Press Association’s Headliner of the Year. In 2022, Cella was inducted into the Arkansas Tourism Hall of Fame.
Forbes Travel Guide is an independent global rating system for luxury hotels and spas. Inspectors pose as regular guests, visit the facilities unannounced, and test almost 900 standards to determine the rankings.
Oaklawn’s Astral Spa offers traditional services such as massages, facials, skin care and body treatment. It also has a fitness center, men’s and women’s lounges, heated loungers, needle showers, steam rooms, infrared saunas, whirlpool tubs and cold rooms.
The hotel, meanwhile, has valet parking, bellmen, room service and concierge assistance. The Bugler was Oaklawn’s first new fine-dining venue. It has windows that look out at the track. A second fine-dining venue, the Oak Room, was later added. It has the dark-wood feel of a classic American steakhouse.
On July 1, 2019, Oaklawn opened the first legal sports book in Arkansas. On Sept 2, 2022, it launched a mobile wagering app known as Oaklawn Sports. And on Dec. 1, 2022, the Mainline Sports Bar opened with sports wagering, dining, Topgolf simulators and even axe throwing.
At the same time amenities were being added, Cella made sure that the traditional product of racing wasn’t forgotten. On March 14, 2019, Oaklawn became the first track in history to split a race worth $1 million or more. Two $750,000 divisions of the Rebel Stakes were run before a crowd of 45,500. A single-day handle record of $16,221,639 was set.
On April 1, 2019, the name was changed to Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort. Smith threw the first legal dice in the history of a city long known for illegal gambling as live craps and blackjack tables opened in the casino.
The first racing season to run into May concluded with a crowd of 22,000 turning out to watch live racing and a Kentucky Derby simulcast. No one could have imagined then what the spring of 2020 would bring.
One day before the $1 million Rebel Stakes in March 2020, Oaklawn closed the races to fans due to the pandemic. Two days later, it closed the casino. Cella, however, made the decision to keep running races without fans in the stands.
On May 2, 2020—the day the Kentucky Derby would have been run—Oaklawn ran the rescheduled Arkansas Derby in two divisions. Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert won both divisions with Charlatan and Rebel Stakes winner Nadal. The 14-race card produced a record handle of $41,007,201. The Kentucky Derby was postponed until Sept. 5.
Cella was named the 2020 Sportsman of the Year by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for his efforts to keep racing alive during the pandemic.
On May 18, 2020, the casino reopened with restrictions. In December 2020, Oaklawn opened the Bugler and the toney First Turn Bar. The Oak Room opened in January 2022.
Oaklawn’s live meet opened with limited fans on Jan. 22, 2021, and was fully open by Arkansas Derby Day on April 10. Eleven days after the 2021 Arkansas Derby, Oaklawn held the grand opening for its hotel, spa and event center.
On Aug. 7, 2021, Three Dog Night became the first official act to perform in the event center. About 60,000 fans turned out for the Arkansas Derby on April 2, 2022.
The 2022-23 race meet featured 45 stakes races worth a record $13,750,000. That meet ended with a record $453,609,670 in handle.
The current race meet, which began in December and ends May 5, has 47 stakes races worth $16.2 million. More than 20 of those stakes received purse increases.
“We have average purses of $900,000 per day and will wind up with $60 million in total purses,” Cella says. “You can come here on a Thursday and see 10-horse and 12-horse fields in races. You just don’t see that elsewhere these days. Casino gambling is nice, but that’s not our focus. Racing still is. That sets us apart from the other casinos. These days, the hotel is sold out every time we have a big race.”
Cella tells the story of a prominent thoroughbred owner who would fly his private jet in for big races, then fly back to the West Coast, refusing to spend the night in Arkansas.
“I urged him to try our hotel just once and let me know he thought,” Cella says. “Now, he can’t get enough of the place. His wife wants to stay for a week.”
Cella says Oaklawn has upped its game in all areas. He mentions how he was walking the track’s infield one day during the hotel’s construction and noticed that the grass was brown.
“It dawned on me that we couldn’t have hotel guests looking out the window at that,” he says. “So we built ponds and an irrigation system to keep the grass green. We created a park. We have lights on in the trees at night. Those are the little details you have to tend to if you’re going to call yourself a resort.”
Smith, a Rhode Island native, was hired at Oaklawn in March 2017 as expansion plans were being made. He’s only the sixth person to hold the title of general manager in Oaklawn’s history. Smith began his career in public accounting and finance before moving on to corporate accounting at ITT Sheraton. He discovered he liked the hospitality industry.
Smith later had senior management positions with MGM Mirage, MGM Grand Las Vegas, MGM Grand Detroit, Caesar’s Entertainment, Empire City Racing & Gaming and Penn National. He’s obviously proud of what has been accomplished at Oaklawn as he walks me through the facility.
“We wanted to create a special sense of arrival when you step into the hotel and casino,” Smith says. “We wanted you to say to yourself that you weren’t expecting something this nice in Arkansas. A lot of thought went into everything you see. The mural behind the front desk, for example, is based on the finish of the 2016 Arkansas Derby. We have racing trophies in a lighted glass case.
“Our pool has a bar and cabanas that you can rent for the day, just like the pools at Las Vegas casinos. Most casinos are dark. We have skylights to let the sun in at the entrance to ours.”
Smith knew nothing about Arkansas when he was contacted by a corporate headhunter, but was intrigued with the idea of working for one of the oldest family-owned sports franchises in the country.
“I looked up Oaklawn and saw that American Pharoah had won the Rebel Stakes and Arkansas Derby prior to winning the Triple Crown in 2015,” Smith says. “That’s when I knew this place was for real. When we came to visit, it reminded me a lot of Rhode Island. It’s a small state with friendly people. And then Louis let me know that he was going to elevate the level of hospitality here. This was going to be something Arkansas had never seen. That was exciting.
“We want people to come from other regions of the country and then go back home bragging on Arkansas. Hopefully their friends will then want to see what this state has to offer.”