Golden State Racing, Monarch reach deal to end simulcasting blackout

Golden State Racing and a simulcast-marketing company controlled by 1/ST Gaming have reached an agreement that will end a blackout on Golden State’s races at Monarch’s simulcasting sites as of the track’s next live racing day on Friday, according to officials.

The agreement will make Golden State’s signal available on XpressBet, 1/ST’s account-wagering company, and at bricks-and-mortar simulcast sites in Florida, Maryland, and New Jersey through the end of the Golden State meet on Dec. 15, according to Scott Daruty, president of Monarch Content Management, the simulcast-marketing company.

Daruty declined to provide details about the agreement.

Golden State Racing, a new company formed to run a prolonged race meet at Pleasanton in Northern California in the wake of the closing this year of Golden Gate Fields, was seeking the same rate received by other California tracks, about 9 percent of betting. Monarch, which represented other Northern California fair tracks last year but did not take on Golden State Racing this year, balked at the rate, as did NYRABets, leading to a blackout on the track’s races.

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Handle on Golden State Racing’s inaugural weekend of racing last week was a total of $1.47 million over two days, compared to approximately $5.4 million on races at Golden Gate Fields on the comparable weekend last year. GSR officials blamed the discrepancy, in part, on the blackout.

Larry Swartzlander, executive director of Golden State Racing, confirmed the agreement in a text message Wednesday afternoon. He also said that Monarch agreed to the rate that Golden State Racing had been seeking initially.

Many Southern California racing constituencies resisted the efforts by Golden State Racing to augment the Northern California circuit with new fair dates, under the belief that the closure of Golden Gate Fields would lead to consolidation of racing stables in the south and strengthen the racing there. Handle and purses at Santa Anita and Del Mar have been declining significantly for several years.

Golden State Fields and Santa Anita are both owned by 1/ST, the owner of Monarch.

Membership of the Thoroughbred Owners of California, which represents owners in both the north and south of the state, was split on supporting the new fair dates run by Golden State Racing earlier this year, but the organization began pressuring Monarch to accept a deal this week after the dispute became public, according to officials.

Although a deal with NYRABets has not yet been worked out, Swartzlander said in his text message that negotiations were ongoing with the New York Racing Association and were being facilitated by officials of the TOC and the California Horse Racing Board.

“We as well as NYRA want to get this done,” Swartzlander said.

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