Hollendorfer denied injunction to race at Golden Gate

An Alameda County Superior Court judge has denied a request for preliminary injunction that would have allowed Hall of Fame trainer Jerry Hollendorfer to race at Golden Gate Fields in Northern California.

The ruling, issued by Judge Noel Wise on Friday, is a setback to Hollendorfer and his legal team, which had successfully petitioned a court in San Diego to allow the trainer to race at Del Mar after that track had also issued a similar ban of the trainer. The Golden Gate ban was issued on June 22, when The Stronach Group banned Hollendorfer from its properties after a horse he trained suffered a catastrophic breakdown while training at Santa Anita Park, which is owned by TSG.

In her ruling, Wise made a legal distinction between a “prohibitory” and a “mandatory injunction,” stating that the request by Hollendorfer did not fit the definition of a prohibitory injunction. As such, the “granting of a mandatory injunction pending trial is not permitted,” unless the plaintiff cannot recover the damages that are suffered as a result of the defendant’s actions, Wise wrote.

“Plaintiffs have not established through admissible evidence that, in the absence of the requested injunction, they would suffer irreparable injury that could not be adequately compensated by monetary damages should they prevail in the case,” Wise wrote. She further noted that other tracks in California on the state’s fair circuit have not banned Hollendorfer, although she did not state that the tracks are not running at this time.

Prior to the Golden Gate meet opening this year, Hollendorfer has had a string of horses based at Golden Gate for the past 40 years, and he is the track’s all-time leading trainer. The track opened its current meet on Aug. 15, four days after Hollendorfer filed the request for a preliminary injunction.

The judge also said that the two sides should continue to work out the issues surrounding the ban in accordance with an agreement between the track and the state’s trainers’ organization, California Thoroughbred Trainers, which had joined in the suit on behalf of Hollendorfer.

Attorneys for Hollendorfer and the CTT had argued in their court filings that Golden Gate’s ban violated the terms of an agreement between the track and the horsemen’s group that states that a track may not act in a “capricious or arbitrary” way when taking action against a trainer without also granting the licensee an arbitration hearing if discussions on the ban cannot be resolved between the two parties.

Wise appeared to urge the two sides to begin that process, even if the two sides continue to dispute whether Hollendorfer is entitled to arbitration.

“It will be up to a hearing officer, chosen either by parties or by the California Horse Racing Board, to determine which party’s position is correct,” she wrote.

Drew Couto, the attorney representing Hollendorfer in the suit, said on Friday after the ruling was released that Hollendorfer “is in a state of limbo” right now.

“She’s saying I’m not going to grant a preliminary injunction, but you need to get working on these processes on the contract dispute,” Couto said.

The Friday ruling came one week after attorneys for both sides presented their cases in a final hearing on the request for a preliminary injunction. Two weeks prior to that hearing, the two sides held a telephone hearing and submitted additional materials to the judge.

At the time that Hollendorfer was banned, Santa Anita was at the epicenter of months of criticism of the racetrack and the larger racing world due to a spate of catastrophic injuries during racing and training. In all, 30 horses died at the track from Dec. 26 until the meet ended, four of them trained by Hollendorfer.

Santa Anita closed its meet in July, but the ban was also picked up by Del Mar, which began its popular meet on July 17. Hollendorfer filed suit against Del Mar challenging the ban, and nine days after the meet began, a San Diego county judge granted Hollendorfer a preliminary injunction that prevented the track from enforcing the ban without first granting the trainer an arbitration hearing.

Hollendorfer’s legal filing seeking relief from Golden Gate was substantially similar to the filing against Del Mar, and the judge’s ruling in the Del Mar case was submitted as an exhibit to the Golden Gate suit.

The Golden Gate suit pointed out that Hollendorfer had been the leading trainer at the track for 32 meets, and it stated that officials for the track had “vigorously and persistently” recruited the trainer to apply for stalls at the track’s upcoming meet prior to the ban being issued.