Ruidoso Downs is a city in Lincoln County, New Mexico, United States, located within the Lincoln National Forest. The population was 1,824 at the 2000 census and 2,815 at the 2010 census. Originally incorporated as a village, it became a city in May 2002. Known locally as “the Downs”, Ruidoso Downs is a suburb of adjacent Ruidoso and is a share of the Ruidoso Micropolitan Statistical Area. The city, located along U.S. Route 70, is named after the Ruidoso Downs Race Track, which is located in the city along taking into consideration the Billy the Kid Casino and the Hubbard Museum of the American West.

According to a local Ruidoso Downs historian, early on Hispanos settlers called the area “San Juanito”. The settlers began arriving in the prematurely in the late 1840s, and introduced rodeo and horse racing to the area. Originally the Place had scattered farms and ranches, with the Dowlin Mill constructed in 1868. A new answer of families arrived after the Lincoln County War.

By just about 1907 the road amongst Roswell and Alamogordo, which passed through the area, was nevertheless primitive, though it was improved in the 1920s through the Federal Aid Project. The road that would become US 70 was paved in the Place around 1945, and after that improved once more in 1958. The road became four lanes in 1981.

In 1946 the Ruidoso News was founded and the landing field opened, and two years highly developed radio arrived. Electric lights appeared in the area in 1947. The White Mountain Inn opened in the 1940s as a sanatorium and as a lodging establishment.