Proposed 2022 Southern California racing calendar largely unchanged
With some minor changes, a proposed Southern California racing calendar for 2022 may look similar to the current season, according to testimony during a two-hour teleconference meeting of the California Horse Racing Board’s dates committee on Tuesday.
The Northern California calendar for the summer of 2022 is not as clear, with annual disagreements regarding racing dates on the county fair circuit in July and August.
The racing board committee’s findings will be presented to the full racing board at Wednesday’s monthly meeting, but no action will be taken until the September racing board meeting at the earliest. That follows a similar timeline from recent years that gives racetracks and horsemen’s organization opportunities to further discuss specific racing dates.
The proposed Southern California schedule begins with a six-month meeting at Santa Anita from Dec. 26, 2021, through June 19. The track has requested an autumn meeting from the week of Sept. 28 to Nov. 6, which would include simulcasting of the Breeders’ Cup from Keeneland on the final weekend.
Santa Anita is likely to have some pause in its calendar in April. This year, the track eliminated racing on Fridays for two weeks. There was no turf racing for one weekend in April and limited use of the surface the following week to allow regeneration of the course during the lengthy season.
The track could follow the same format in 2022 or even have a week without racing, track general manager Nate Newby said.
Del Mar has requested an eight-week meeting from July 22 through Sept. 11, which would include the weekend following Labor Day. The track has not raced on the weekend after Labor Day since 2003. In the autumn, Del Mar has requested an autumn meeting from Nov. 9 to Dec. 6.
Del Mar has been granted eight weeks of summer racing dates since 2020. For decades, the track was allotted seven weeks of racing, and ran more days per week. This year, Del Mar is largely running four days a week.
Los Alamitos would have a summer meeting of least three weeks, from the weekend of June 23-26 through July 10, a two-week meeting in September from approximately Sept. 15 through Sept. 25, and a two-week meeting from Dec. 9-18.
Los Alamitos, which does not have turf racing, would like to run its summer meeting through July 17, but Del Mar officials are adamant that a gap of nearly two weeks is scheduled from the end of Los Alamitos to the start of its summer meeting. A similar gap was in place last month, and led to higher field sizes in the opening weeks of the Del Mar meeting compared to a similar time in July 2020.
Del Mar officials further argued that a weekend without racing in July of next year allows track maintenance crews time to prepare the racing surface following the conclusion of the San Diego County Fair on the same property on July 4 and gives horses time to adjust to training on a new track. From a financial perspective, Del Mar also gains from a week without racing by accruing simulcasting revenue for purses.
“A week break provides for a safe training and racing environment,” track president Josh Rubinstein said.
Los Alamitos officials argued for additional live racing.
“Live racing at Los Al is better than a simulcast week,” Los Alamitos president Jack Liebau said.
“Los Al does give a break for some horses, particularly the turf horses. There is a segment of the horse population that excels at Los Al that doesn’t do well at Santa Anita or Del Mar. It’s important to keep the connections of these horses in the business and to keep these horses in California.”
Through the proposed calendar, actual racing days could be different than the requested dates since some weekdays would be dark days in which only simulcasting is conducted.
In Northern California, Golden Gate Fields would run a season of nearly six months from Dec. 26 to early June, with additional meetings in late summer and autumn.
The specifics of the summertime county fair circuit is less certain, with brief seasons scheduled at Pleasanton, Sacramento, Santa Rosa, and Ferndale.
During Tuesday’s meeting, disputes arose about when some meetings would begin and end, particularly at Sacramento and Santa Rosa, and whether the Humboldt County Fair in Ferndale would operate without racing held simultaneously at Golden Gate Fields for at least one week of the two-week season.
Humboldt would gain a financial windfall if Golden Gate Fields does not operate for part of the small track’s live meeting.
This year, the Sacramento dates were run at Pleasanton, while the Santa Rosa dates were held at Golden Gate Fields. The fair circuit has shrunk at an alarming rate. In the last 20 years, fair meetings have ceased operation on the Northern California circuit at Bay Meadows, Stockton, and Vallejo.
Summertime fair racing dates have been a point of contention for decades in the north and drew frustration Tuesday from a top racing executive.
“This is like the Afghanistan war,” said Greg Avioli, president of the Thoroughbred Owners of California. “This is a 20-year dispute.”
Avioli said the TOC requests the racing board adopt the same calendar as this year for the northern circuit and said the organization is “looking toward the bigger issue of how to come to a long-term solution.”
Requests for racing dates for the harness meeting at Cal-Expo in Sacramento and the year-round Quarter Horse and lower-level Thoroughbred meeting at Los Alamitos are unchanged from recent decades.