Expanded California State Fair meet opens

The California State Fair opens a three-week, 11-day run Friday in Sacramento. The three-week meeting is the first for the state fair, which has run for two weeks in the past.

Filling races will be a challenge, said Tom Doutrich, the racing secretary for the California Authority of Racing Fairs, which conducts all the Northern California fair meets except Santa Rosa.

“We’ll be able to get cards with competitive races this year, although I don’t know how many full fields we’ll have,” said Doutrich. “We will have more than twice as many horses stabled at Sacramento this year at around 350.”

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An influx of runners from Idaho will stable at Sacramento and then likely move to Santa Rosa for the three-week Sonoma County Fair meet.

“And they come here to run,” said Larry Swartzlander, CARF’s chief operating officer.

Two stakes, each worth $50,000, are scheduled for the meet. Fillies and mares go 1 1/16 miles in the Governor’s Handicap this Saturday. Three-year-olds sprint six furlongs in the Sacramento Golden Bear Sprint the following Saturday, July 18.

Among the trainers new to the state-fair meet is Jonathan Wong, who was 6 for 8 with two seconds at the Oak Tree at Pleasanton meet. Wong and owner Scott Herbertson were 6 for 6 together at Pleasanton and are looking to continue their streak in Sacramento.

CARF is offering bonuses of $800 to trainers who run five horses during the meet and $1,500 to trainers who run 10.

Safety and comfort improvements at the state fair include a new safety rail, misters in the test barn, and a loose-horse alert system. Tack rooms in the barns have been fixed up.

Rick Baedeker, executive director for the California Horse Racing Board, noted the potential to attract more fans to the racetrack as one reason the state-fair meet was extended an extra week.

“Attendance is about 325,000 a week at the state fair, which is more than the whole attendance at some fairs,” Baedeker said.