California Horse Racing Board denies requests for dates up north
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On Thursday, a majority of California Horse Racing Board commissioners voted down requests for summer racing dates from two fairs in Northern California.
Only one of the votes qualified as an official action because the board’s rules require four votes to be binding. Four commissioners voted to deny racing dates to a group seeking as many as 10 dates at Pleasanton, while three of the five commissioners voted to deny an application for as many as seven dates at Ferndale.
Scott Chaney, the CHRB's executive director, said that the vote for the fair at Ferndale would be classified as the board “taking no action” on the request. A supporter of both of the requests, Commissioner Oscar Gonzales, said he would like the backers of the Ferndale plan to return to the board once an empty commissioner's seat is filled.
The two requests were the latest attempts by supporters of racing in Northern California to resurrect racing there after Golden Gate Fields was closed last year and the California Association of Racing Fairs voted earlier this year to stop supporting live racing on the Northern California fair circuit.
The Ferndale request was made by the Humboldt County Fair Association. The president of its board of directors, Andy Titus, made an impassioned plea for the dates on behalf of the fair and its local community, saying that the continuation of live racing at the fair would give small-time horsemen a shot at purses that they were unable to win at Santa Anita.
“If there’s a negative, I’d love to hear it, but all I see is positives,” Titus said.
Titus added that the track planned to increase purses by 25 to 30 percent for this year’s meet compared to last year’s meet, which he called a “success.”
A string of representatives from Southern California spoke against the proposal, with most contending that the awarding of the dates would entitle Humboldt to nearly $2 million in simulcasting revenue that would otherwise flow to the south. Bill Nader, the president of the Thoroughbred Owners of California, said that money would be of better used at Southern California racetracks, which have seen business tick up since racing ceased up north, in part because of the increased simulcasting revenue.
“We’re seeing renewed life, but it doesn’t mean that there’s money to throw around,” Nader said.
Andy Mathis, a trainer who was based in Northern California for 25 years but relocated to Santa Anita, said that he surveyed trainers who were formerly based in Northern California and could find no support among them for shipping horses to Ferndale during the proposed meet, which would run for three weekends from late July to Labor Day weekend, concurrent with the Del Mar meet near San Diego.
“People have moved. They’ve moved their homes and their families and their businesses, and the answer was the same. It was ‘no,’” said Mathis, a member of the TOC’s North Racing Committee.
The dates request was most forcefully backed by Gonzales, who said that Northern California interests have “no voice” anymore.
The Pleasanton request was made by a new company called Bernal Racing, which was formed by Northern California owner-breeders Greg Schmitt and John Harris. Schmitt said at the meeting that the partnership had $2 million to back the Pleasanton meet, which was being planned for three weekends in June and July on a Friday-Sunday schedule.
Dr. Gregory Ferraro, the chairman of the commission, was critical of the plan presented by Bernal for the race meet, saying that he feared the group would meet the same fate as the backers of Golden State Racing, a private group which received dates at Pleasanton last year but ended the meet early in the face of heavy financial losses.
“If Golden State Racing proved anything, it’s that a million to two-million backup is not sufficient to cover the losses,” Ferraro said.
Ferraro said he would not support the request until the group could offer more detail on its business plan, and he urged the group to “study” the issues before coming back to the board next year. Only Gonzales voted to support the requested dates.
Bernal Racing was also going to provide staff for the meet at Ferndale and act as its operator.
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