Santa Anita gets two disputed September dates

CYPRESS, Calif. – Santa Anita will open its autumn meeting on the final weekend of September after reaching an agreement this week with officials from the Los Angeles County Fair and Los Alamitos over two disputed days of racing.

Under the agreement, the Los Angeles County Fair meeting at Los Alamitos will conclude Friday, Sept. 25, and be followed by the first two days of the Santa Anita autumn meeting Sept. 26-27. Both tracks had sought to race on those dates and held discussions in recent months seeking a resolution.

The agreement calls for Santa Anita to pay Los Alamitos $300,000 in compensation for the lost racing days, according to Los Alamitos track owner Ed Allred. Santa Anita will receive financial rights for simulcasting revenue generated in Southern California from Sept. 28-30 as part of the deal, Allred said. Los Alamitos had sought higher overall compensation, Allred said.

The Los Angeles County Fair meeting at Los Alamitos will keep its original starting day of Sept. 10.

Had an agreement not been reached, the disputed racing-dates issue was scheduled to be resolved by the California Horse Racing Board at its monthly meeting at Los Alamitos on Thursday. The issue will now be removed from the agenda, according to executive director Rick Baedeker.

By starting its autumn meeting Sept. 26, Santa Anita will have a program that includes several stakes races that are preps for Breeders’ Cup races at Keeneland on Oct. 30-31, Santa Anita vice president Scott Daruty said on Wednesday.

The issue of late-September racing dates needed a resolution this month since the tracks are expected to present license applications for the respective race meetings to the racing board at its monthly meeting at Del Mar on July 17.

The September 2015 racing calendar was finalized in the autumn of 2013, when Southern California racing executives hoped the Breeders’ Cup championship races would be held at Santa Anita on Oct. 30-31 this year. Breeders’ Cup officials later awarded the championship races to Keeneland.

When the racing board met in 2013 to finalize racing dates for 2015, Los Angeles County Fair officials asked the board for the right to race Sept. 26-27 this year if the Breeders’ Cup was held on the first weekend of November. At a racing board meeting in September 2013, Los Angeles County Fair chief financial officer Mike Seder asked the racing board for the Los Angeles County Fair to receive “an economic consideration to make us whole for giving up those dates.”

The county fair ran its final race meeting on fairgrounds in Pomona in 2013 and shifted its race meeting to Los Alamitos in 2014.