Northern California horsemen to present plan for 26-day season at Pleasanton

A consortium of three county fair associations will present a plan to the California Horse Racing Board on Thursday to run a 10-week meeting this fall at the Alameda County Fair Grounds in Pleasanton that will replace Golden Gate Fields as a year-round base for Thoroughbred racing in Northern California.

Golden State Racing, a group of Northern California-based horsemen working in conjunction with the California Authority of Racing Fairs, has proposed a 26-day season from Oct. 19 through Dec. 15 racing on a Friday-through-Sunday basis.

The group is seeking permission for racing dates at a time when the closure of Golden Gate Fields on June 9 has left the long-term future of Northern California racing in turmoil.

The closure of Golden Gate Fields was announced last July. Initially, Golden Gate Fields was scheduled to close in December, but the track’s parent company, 1/ST Racing, which also owns Santa Anita in Southern California, agreed to a request from the racing board to race from late December until early June this year to provide a venue for the continuation of racing.

The Golden State Racing meeting at Pleasanton will be preceded by three months of racing at county fairs at Pleasanton, Sacramento, Santa Rosa, Ferndale, and Fresno from mid-June to mid-October.

The proposed dates for racing at Fresno cover 11 days of racing over a four-week period from Sept. 21 to Oct. 14, much longer than two-week meetings held in recent years, according to documents submitted to the racing board.

The same documents indicate that Golden State Racing will utilize racing days available to the counties of Monterey, San Joaquin, and Solano for its autumn meeting.

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San Joaquin conducted a race meeting in Stockton as recently as 2015. Solano conducted racing in Vallejo until 2009. Racing at Stockton and Solano were previously part of that fair circuit, operating brief meetings.

The proposed meeting at Pleasanton does not have universal support throughout the state. At a racing board meeting in January, tracks in Southern California told the racing board that racing in Northern California should be consolidated to the county fair circuit and that revenue generated from simulcasting in that part of the state at other times of the year should be redirected to tracks in Southern California for purses or to offset regulatory costs, such as financing the racing board’s budget.

Northern California-based owners and breeders have said repeatedly in recent months that the absence of a year-round racing would lead to widespread reductions in the number of horses available to race in that part of the state as well as cause a decline in California-bred horses.

Golden State Racing’s proposal calls for overnight purses of approximately $134,000 per day and a total prize money distribution of $200,000 per day when a small number of stakes are included through the season.

Over the weekend at Golden Gate Fields, overnight purses ranged from $87,250 on a seven-race program on Friday to $110,000 on an eight-race program on Saturday before bonuses are included for California-breds finishing in the first five.

Golden Gate Fields slashed overnight purses 25 percent in December, prior to the start of the current meeting on Dec. 26, in an effort to recoup a purse overpayment of approximately $3 million from recent years. The stakes program was severely curtailed from 16 races to two at the 2022-23 winter-spring meeting.

The proposed meeting at Pleasanton is supported by nearly $5 million in financing from CARF and the group of horsemen, according to documents filed with the racing board.

The stable area will have capacity for 900 horses when auxiliary stalls are included. Other issues, notably permits related to stormwater runoff for locations that host more than 500 horses for longer than 45 days, have not been resolved. The documents submitted to the racing board included potential plans for further capital improvements to the Pleasanton property, including the potential development of a turf course.

The infield at Pleasanton has a golf course. When Golden Gate Fields closes, there will only be three turf courses at tracks in California – at Santa Rosa, which offers a two-week meeting in August, and at Del Mar and Santa Anita in the south.

In recent months, CARF held discussions about relocating racing on a year-round basis to Cal-Expo in Sacramento, but moved away from that plan earlier this year. Sacramento has a contract to conduct two harness race meetings annually through 2030.

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