Kim and Kevin Nish were down from Northern California last weekend to enjoy a family holiday around Sneaking Out’s appearance in Sunday’s $200,000 Melair Stakes at Santa Anita. “We were at Disneyland on Saturday, sitting in New Orleans Square taking a lunch break, when Kim noticed something on Twitter or Facebook about all of Jerry’s horses being scratched over the weekend,” Kevin Nish said. “I said, ‘Nah, that can’t be.’ Turned out it was true. We were in the happiest place on Earth right up until it wasn’t.” Welcome to one of the many unsettling ripples caused by the boulder thrown into the troubled waters of California racing by Santa Anita management, whose unilateral banishment of Jerry Hollendorfer has had wide-ranging impact beyond the public shaming of a respected Hall of Fame trainer. The boom was lowered last Saturday morning in the wake of Hollendorfer’s fourth equine fatality at Santa Anita since last Dec. 30. Hollendorfer had 160 starters emerge from the 46 stalls his horses occupied at the racetrack through six months of training and racing. While on his way to the track with a horse preparing to train, Hollendorfer was approached by Santa Anita security personnel and told to return the horse to his barn, then report to the executive offices. Later, a golf cart with a track representative was dispatched to transport the trainer as ordered. There is no question Hollendorfer, 73, was doing business with a target painted on his back. He had both the first and last of the 30 equine fatalities of the meet. He lost the best known of the runners, Battle of Midway, and the most senior, 9-year-old Kochees, whose demise in late May appeared to put the Hollendorfer operation on notice that the ice was getting perilously thin. There can be arguments long into the night over motives of track management in removing Hollendorfer from its properties, which also includes Golden Gate Fields. If the idea was to inoculate Santa Anita and its owner, The Stronach Group, from even more harsh publicity than the company already has endured this year, then banning Hollendorfer was an act of ritual sacrifice to the media gods. If the intention was to treat the Hollendorfer horses as if they all were at immediate risk, then why was the California Horse Racing Board not involved in their role of protecting the sport and its participants, both equine and human? CHRB chairman Chuck Winner confirmed that there was no ruling against Hollendorfer from the board. Neither was Santa Anita management required to inform the CHRB that it was taking such dramatic action against a licensee in good standing. Asked if Santa Anita’s unilateral move against Hollendorfer would prompt a CHRB investigation, Winner replied, “Not to my knowledge. It is their private property.” Yes, Santa Anita is private property. They can paint the place purple and drape the Zenyatta statue in Christmas lights if they want. But the racing and training operation also is subject to state licensing requirements when it comes to any number of categories, from purse contracts, to simulcasting rights, to stable conditions and racing surface safety. As such, a track also should be accountable to the enabling state agency in how licensees are treated. The Hollendorfer banishment also has opened wide a wound that has been festering in California racing for some time. Dr. Ed Allred, owner of Los Alamitos, thumbed his nose at Santa Anita by immediately offering Hollendorfer’s suddenly homeless horses safe haven, as did the proprietors of the Pleasanton stabling facility in the north. Del Mar, however, is in a stickier situation. With the meet opening July 17 and barns available the week before, management must decide whether to go along with Santa Anita’s Hollendorfer ban. The San Diego media operates in an unforgiving fishbowl, in which equine fatalities have made local headlines on a regular basis every summer. Del Mar management can take great pains to point out its vastly improved safety record over the past two seasons, and they can recite “We are not Santa Anita” until they turn blue. But, as CEO Joe Harper said, “We know they won’t be writing about the hat contest on opening day this year.” It should come as no surprise that many of Hollendorfer’s patrons are rising to his defense, citing his devotion to the welfare of their horses. At the same time, they wonder about the future of their racing prospects in California if their trainer continues to be banned at the major meets. Michael Stinson, who has nine runners with Hollendorfer, including one scratched last weekend, stated simply, “If Jerry Hollendorfer is not welcomed in California, that is a very sad situation. I’m not sure I’d want to continue racing there.” Likewise, Kim and Kevin Nish are up in the air with their KMN Stable horses, including their homebred Sneaking Out, who was all dressed up last weekend with no place to go. “Any horse who gets to a starting gate has been somebody’s labor of love for years, sometimes decades,” Kevin Nish said. “Any time an opportunity like that is taken away it’s going to be painful.” In the meantime, on Saturday Hollendorfer will saddle Grecian Fire for KMN in the Bertrando Stakes at Los Alamitos, which will have to do for now as the only happy place in California racing.