Santa Anita executives to make case for racing to county health officials

Santa Anita executives are hoping to meet with officials from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health next Saturday, April 18, in an effort to get permission to reopen the racetrack amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

Santa Anita was deemed a nonessential business and was closed by order of county health officials on March 27, with less than an hour before first post time. Santa Anita raced for five days, March 14-22, without spectators and with numerous safeguards in place to protect horsemen and track employees.

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Friday, track officials told listeners during a teleconference conducted by the Thoroughbred Owners of California that they have further enhanced safety protocols in advance of the expected meeting with county officials.

“Our focus is to get them information and update our protocols and make the argument that we can resume racing,” said Craig Fravel, the chief executive officer of The Stronach Group, the parent company of Santa Anita and Golden Gate Fields in the Bay Area.

“We thought we had a compelling argument for racing. We had amazing protocols for safe distances, hygiene, and quarantining people on site if we had a positive.”

Similar discussions are expected to take place with Alameda County officials regarding a resumption of racing at Golden Gate Fields, which ceased racing on April 2.

Through this Sunday, Santa Anita will have lost nine days of racing because of the coronavirus outbreak. During the closure, training has continued at Golden Gate Fields and Santa Anita.

Santa Anita has tightened access to the stable area to only essential personnel. In late March, the track announced that jockeys were not allowed in the stable area and would not be permitted to work horses during the coronavirus outbreak.

“There hasn’t been any challenge of the continuation of training and care of horses as we have traditionally done,” Fravel said.

Greg Avioli, the president of the TOC, said during the teleconference that as of earlier this week there are 2,226 horses in training at Santa Anita, Los Alamitos and the San Luis Rey Downs training center, and 1,322 at Golden Gate Fields.

He said Southern California racing needs at least 2,000 horses in training for a smooth resumption of racing, Avioli said.

“We have to have 2,000 horses in active training in Southern California to hit the ground running,” he said.

The teleconference touched on costs of keeping horses in training without racing and plans for the popular summer meeting at Del Mar.

Last weekend, Southern California trainers were notified of a $1,233 charge per horse in their care to cover workers’ compensation costs for the first quarter of 2020. Avioli said on Friday that those bills will largely be covered by existing funding mechanisms within the sport. He did not detail the sources of revenue, but emphasized that “95 percent” of the fees can be paid “from other industry sources.”

“We think that will be a big relief for owners and trainers,” he said. “We didn’t want owners to handle additional financial burdens at this time.”

During the 75-minute teleconference, Del Mar officials said plans continue for a July 18 opening day of the summer meeting.

“The good news is July 18 is 14 weeks from now,” said Del Mar president Josh Rubinstein. “Time is on our side. We are hopeful the summer meet will go on as scheduled.”

Tom Robbins, the track’s director of racing, said the horse population in California is being closely monitored in an attempt to plan the summer meeting, which is scheduled to be run largely on a five-day per week basis through Sept. 7.

“We are looking at various scenarios and how to conduct our race meeting with or without people,” Robbins said. “We’re trying to predict how things will be in July.”

Del Mar has yet to publish its stakes schedule. Robins suggested there will be significant changes to the stakes schedule, with the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs having been postponed from May 2 to Sept. 5 because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Rubinstein said it was unclear as of Friday whether the San Diego County Fair would begin in early June as scheduled. The track is located on county fairgrounds.

The Northern California fair circuit is scheduled to begin at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton on June 19, officials said.

Currently, the only racetrack operating in California is Los Alamitos, which is conducting an evening meeting for Quarter Horse and lower-level Thoroughbreds. There are no plans to add daytime Thoroughbred racing at Los Alamitos while Santa Anita is closed, officials said.

Fravel, of The Stronach Group, noted that track executives are dealing with something that is unprecedented.

“There are no easy answers,” Fravel said. “There is no playbook on any of this. We’re experiencing things day by day. Hopefully we never have to deal with this again. We’re learning every day and keeping our minds open to suggestions.”