CHRB approves Los Alamitos Thoroughbred meet for late June

Los Alamitos is likely to conduct its two-week Thoroughbred meeting in late June and early July without spectators or horse owners present ontrack due to the coronavirus outbreak, track officials told the California Horse Racing Board on Wednesday.

The six-day meeting, scheduled for June 26 to July 5, will be held in addition to the track’s ongoing year-round evening meeting of Quarter Horses and lower-level Thoroughbreds. The evening meeting is currently being held without spectators or horse owners allowed ontrack and with a limited number of personnel on site to conduct racing.

Participants such as jockeys and assistant starters are wearing masks and gloves during the evening meeting, track officials said.

Track vice president Jack Liebau said officials with the Cypress police department “were on premises” earlier this week “to make sure protocols are being followed.”

“We consider ourselves to be in strict compliance with the protocols set forth by Orange County, the state of California and the [Centers of Disease Control],” Liebau said. “The protocols will be kept in place assuming conditions are the same. If things change, we’ll adapt according to the conditions.”

Los Alamitos is the only track operating in the state. Thoroughbred meetings at Golden Gate Fields and Santa Anita and the harness meeting in Sacramento are temporarily closed after being deemed nonessential businesses by their respective counties because of the coronavirus outbreak.

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Officials with Golden Gate Fields and Santa Anita, which are owned by The Stronach Group, are hoping to resume racing in the near future without spectators and with limited employees in attendance, pending approval from county officials.

Officials with the Sacramento harness racing meeting told the racing board on Wednesday that they hope to resume racing in November.

The racing board approved the license for the Los Alamitos meeting by a unanimous vote despite criticism by a group of anti-racing activists who argued that no racing should be conducted during the coronavirus outbreak.

The racing board deferred a decision on racing dates for the Alameda County Fair at Pleasanton, which is scheduled to operate a 15-day season from June 19 to July 12. Fair racing officials proposed deferring the meeting until mid-October because of the coronavirus outbreak, but the idea was criticized by executives with The Stronach Group. Golden Gate Fields, in northern California, is scheduled to race in October.

The issue is scheduled to be discussed before the racing board in May. Racing board vice chairman Oscar Gonzales said he would like to hold meetings with the participants in coming weeks to discuss the matter.

The racing board met via teleconference because of the coronavirus outbreak.

At the beginning of the meeting, Rick Arthur, California’s equine medical director, reported that the number of fatalities at the state’s racetrack has declined “25 percent from the previous fiscal year.”

The racing board’s fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.

“This fiscal year will have the lowest number of fatalities since the CHRB began keeping reliable statistics in 1990,” Arthur said.

According to statistics released last December, there were 144 fatalities in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019, compared to a record low of 138 for the fiscal year ending on June 30, 2018.