Santa Anita will take another brief break in April next year

Santa Anita will have a gap of one or two race weeks without racing at its upcoming winter-spring meeting, according to a 2022 racing calendar approved on Wednesday by the California Horse Racing Board.

Santa Anita’s winter-spring meeting runs from Dec. 26 through June 19. There is no racing scheduled on the week of April 15-17. It was not clear on Wednesday whether racing would be held April 22-24, according to Santa Anita general manager Nate Newby.

“We’d ask for a flex week in the second week to be dependent on other things that may happen – how much rain we get and condition of the turf course,” Newby said.

“We have no issue with scheduling a mid-April break.”

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Officials are hoping a brief stoppage in racing could lead to bigger fields later in the meeting. At the 2020-2021 winter-spring meeting, fields averaged 7.24 runners per race, a decline from 7.5 runners at the 2019-2020 season, which lost 21 days of racing in the early months of the pandemic.

Earlier this year, Santa Anita altered its racing schedule to give the turf course a chance to grow and provide the horse population a brief break from racing. Racing was not held on two Fridays – April 9 and 16. There was no turf racing on April 10-11 and limited use of the surface on April 17-18.

Overall, the 2022 Thoroughbred racing schedule in Southern California is largely unchanged from this year. Los Alamitos will host seven weeks of racing, with meetings in the summer, September and December. The track’s three-week summer meeting, from June 24 to July 10, will be conducted under the Los Angeles County Fair license, officials said on Wednesday.

The county fair meeting was moved from Fairplex Park in Pomona to Los Alamitos in 2014 and has been primarily run in September. Last year the meeting was held in December.

Del Mar’s summer meeting will be held over eight weeks, from July 22 through Sept. 11. It will extend a week past Labor Day weekend for the first time since 2003. In recent years, the track’s summer meeting has ended on Labor Day.

Under that calendar, there would be no Thoroughbred racing in Southern California during the race week of July 15-17. Officials with Los Alamitos and labor unions argued in documents submitted to the racing board for live racing to be held that week.

The Santa Anita autumn meeting will run from Sept. 30 to Nov. 6, followed by a Del Mar autumn meeting from Nov. 11 to Dec. 4.

The Northern California Thoroughbred schedule closely resembles past years’, with lengthy meetings at Golden Gate Fields from Dec. 26 to June 12, Aug. 25 to Oct. 2, and Oct. 20 to Dec. 18.

There are 13 weeks of county fair racing from June 16 to Aug. 28 at Pleasanton, Sacramento, Santa Rosa, and Humboldt, and a two-week meeting in Fresno from Oct. 7-17.

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Harness meetings at Sacramento are scheduled from Dec. 26 through May 8 and from the first weekend of November to Dec. 20. Los Alamitos plans an evening year-round Quarter Horse and lower-level Thoroughbred meeting.

Wednesday, the racing board approved licenses for autumn meetings at Santa Anita and Golden Gate Fields, but only after a lengthy discussion over the lack of agreements between the tracks and the California Thoroughbred Trainers. The tracks and trainers have not been able to agree on the reasons tracks can rule off trainers.

Officials with the CTT and tracks told the racing board that negotiations are ongoing without resolution. The racing board approved the licenses contingent upon the parties seeking mediation.