Cal-Expo fails to draw sufficient entries for Friday card again

The Cal-Expo state fair meeting in Sacramento, Calif., intends to race on Saturday and Sunday evenings this weekend after failing to draw sufficient entries on Friday for the second consecutive week.

The track postponed its opening day from July 12 to July 13 because of hot conditions and a low number of entries. Friday’s program this week did not draw an adequate number of runners.

Racing secretary Tom Doutrich said on Wednesday that a forecast for slightly lower temperatures this weekend – from low 100s on Thursday and Friday to high 90s on Saturday and Sunday – should help entries.

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Doutrich said an eight-race program is planned for Saturday.

This summer, Cal-Expo has a first post time of 5 p.m. Pacific in an attempt to race at a slightly cooler time of day.

Two days of racing were held last weekend – a six-race program on July 13, and an eight-race program on July 14 that included two races for Quarter Horses.

The meeting is scheduled to run through July 28. Sacramento is the second of five tracks on the fair circuit. The Alameda county fair at Pleasanton concluded a four-week meeting on July 7. A three-week meeting at the Sonoma county fair in Santa Rosa is scheduled from Aug. 2-18.

“We know this is the toughest meeting of all, being between Pleasanton and Santa Rosa,” Doutrich said of Cal-Expo’s position on the summer calendar.

“Saturday and Sunday should be good.”

Doutrich said the Northern California fair circuit has approximately 800 horses in training. Northern California racing is going through an intense period of transition this year, following the permanent closure of Golden Gate Fields, near Oakland, on June 9.

Golden Gate Fields conducted racing for most of the year when the fair circuit was not operating. Later this year, after the final two meetings on the fair circuit are held at Ferndale and Fresno, an autumn meeting is scheduled at Pleasanton from late October to mid-December at a time when Golden Gate Fields had raced.

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