The California Authority of Racing Fairs, which oversees brief race meetings at four venues in the northern half of the state, announced Tuesday it will not seek additional racing dates, a decision widely expected in the racing community. The organization ran summer meetings at county fairs in Pleasanton, Sacramento, and Ferndale, and an autumn meeting in Fresno. With the permanent closure of Golden Gate Fields last June, and Tuesday’s announcement, there is little expectation racing will continue in Northern California. The Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa is not allied with CARF and could choose to run a race meeting this summer, though it was not immediately clear Tuesday whether that would occur. An official with that fair did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment. Several leading trainers said last week that they did not expect racing on the fair circuit this summer and were making contingency plans to move their stables to Southern California, Turf Paradise in Phoenix, or Emerald Downs in Washington. Many trainers bound for Southern California said they would reduce the sizes of their stables and focus on retaining higher-caliber horses. In a statement published Tuesday, CARF cited a money-losing autumn meeting at Pleasanton as a reason for not seeking future racing dates. The autumn meeting ran 13 weeks from Oct. 19-Dec. 18 and was designed to replace racing dates previously held at Golden Gate Fields. The autumn meeting was operated by Golden State Racing, a consortium of owners and breeders and CARF, and had handle figures far lower than projected. In part, Tuesday’s statement said the decision not to seek racing dates “was based upon an assessment of financial challenges incurred in the GSR race meet as well as current obstacles facing the horse racing industry. “While this marks a difficult and challenging moment for the Northern California live racing community, CARF will continue to support its satellite wagering members and explore all possible avenues to support the California Horse Racing industry,” the statement read. Some county fair members of CARF offer simulcast wagering on their properties, but do not conduct horse racing, notably venues in Monterey, San Jose, San Mateo, Stockton, and Vallejo. Fair meetings have been held in the past in San Mateo at Bay Meadows and at county fairgrounds in Stockton and Vallejo. Simulcasting is expected to continue at those venues and at the fairs that conducted racing. Since the conclusion of the Golden State Racing meeting in December, there has been a steady decline in the number of horses in training at Pleasanton, leading to concern that had fair meetings been scheduled later this year there would have been a small number of available horses. As recently as last week, there were slightly more than 500 horses based at Pleasanton, according to a person familiar with the inventory, a decline from approximately 700 earlier in January. On Dec. 31, the racing community was notified by officials that training could cease at Pleasanton on March 25 if the number of horses based at the track is less than 500 in late February. Following Tuesday’s announcement, a fair can independently request racing dates from the California Horse Racing Board, though a shortage of horses would likely preclude such a venture.  Pleasanton became a base of training in Northern California last summer after the closure of Golden Gate Fields. Pleasanton may now be known as the last venue to hold racing in that part of the state. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.