After much discussion, CHRB approves 12-month racing license for Los Alamitos

Los Alamitos received regulatory approval from the California Horse Racing Board on Thursday for a 12-month racing license for the current evening meeting through Dec. 21, a reversal of the board’s decision last month to grant a six-month license.

The board voted 4-3 to approve the year-long license.

In December, the board deadlocked with a 3-3 vote on a motion for a six-month license, and by the same vote on a motion for a year-long license. After tense discussions at that meeting, the board eventually approved a six-month license by a vote of 5-1, urging the track to continue with medication and veterinary reforms enacted last summer following a series of equine fatalities.

Los Alamitos immediately asked the racing board to reconsider the measure at Thursday’s meeting. The racing board granted the year-long license after a discussion that lasted more than two hours and 30 minutes.

Racing board commissioner Alex Solis, the retired Hall of Fame jockey, cast the deciding vote. Solis did not participate in the December meeting. Both meetings were held via teleconference because of the pandemic.

Los Alamitos has received a 12-month license annually since the track eliminated harness racing and began year-round Quarter Horse racing in 2000.

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Prior to Thursday’s vote, Los Alamitos officials presented enhanced plans to improve safety conditions for the Quarter Horses and lower-level Thoroughbreds that run at the track’s year-long evening meeting, including the addition of three retired racing board investigators to work with stewards and patrol the stable area to observe horses entered on race days.

Track owner Ed Allred said a six-month license racing threatened the viability of the track’s nominating and payment system for leading futurities and derbys, many of which are held in the final months of the year.

After an 80-minute public comment period, in which 26 people spoke in favor of the track’s yearlong license, and 12 against the track’s request, racing board commissioners held a discussion of approximately 30 minutes before approving the year-long license.

Solis was joined in favor of the 12-month license by chairman Greg Ferraro and commissioners Damascus Castellanos and Dennis Alfieri. Vice chairman Oscar Gonzales, and commissioners Wendy Mitchell and Brenda Washington Davis opposed a 12-month license.

Ferraro, Alfieri and Castellanos supported a 12-month license at the December meeting, with Alfieri and Castellanos later changing their votes in favor of a six-month license.

Thursday, Ferraro, a former racetrack veterinarian, cited several elements in support of the 12-month license, including reducing economic hardship for the track with a shorter license, continuing to enhance the relationship between the racing board and track on equine safety measures, and the track’s willingness to change veterinary policies

“They responded positively with enhanced safety measures,” Ferraro said. “Has Los Alamitos been treated fairly? I don’t think so.”

Ferraro emphasized that the racing board has the right to suspend a racing license out of concern for equine safety. Last July, Los Alamitos was placed on a 10-day probation after a series of equine fatalities in preceding months. At the time, the track introduced additional safety measures and great veterinary oversight protocols, which received the approval of the racing board by a vote of 6-0 last July.

In the discussion prior to Thursday’s vote, Gonzales maintained his position that a six-month license would allow the racing board to review the track’s safety record before deciding whether to extend the license in the second half of the year.

“We are in a new era of regulating horse racing,” Gonzales said. “My advice to Los Al is to run a safe track, make sure you are taking care of the horses.”

Mitchell reiterated Gonzales’s safety concern.

“We’re trying to make sure horses stay safe,” she said.

Equine safety has been the principal topic of many racing board meetings in the last two years following a series of horse fatalities at Santa Anita in early 2019.

Sunday, there were two equine fatalities at Los Alamitos. A Thoroughbred trained by Phil D’Amato died at the barn moments after completing training. A Thoroughbred trained by Robert Bean sustained a fatal injury during a workout.

At the start of Thursday’s meeting, racing board executive director Scott Chaney said the number of fatalities at racing board-regulated enclosures declined from 128 in 2019 to 96 in 2020. The figure includes fatalities caused by injuries in training and racing or illnesses.

Chaney said training and racing fatalities fell from 93 in 2019 to 67 last year. He acknowledged that the pandemic caused a 16 percent reduction in racing days.

“This is clear progress, but there is more to do,” Chaney said.