Sonoma County Fair set to open for 13-day meet

Seven $50,000-added stakes will highlight the Sonoma County Fair’s 13-day racing meet beginning Friday in Santa Rosa, Calif.

The return of wine-country racing also means the return of turf racing in Northern California, with Santa Rosa hosting the only turf racing during the fair racing season. Five of the meet’s seven stakes are carded for turf, including two during opening weekend, the Wine Country Stakes for 3-year-old fillies and the Luther Burbank Handicap for fillies and mares. Both will be run at 1 1/16 miles.

This year’s meeting also marks the return of the Wine Country Debutante, a six-furlong stakes for 2-year-old fillies Aug. 8.

“We didn’t want to let the stakes go dormant for two years. We’ve tried to work one-on-one with them,” said Joe Morris, president of the Thoroughbred Owners of California. Morris added that he hoped that the TOC’s push to have both TVG and HRTV televise races from Santa Rosa would help the meet as it did at Pleasanton.

The meet will run five-day weeks Wednesdays through Sundays starting with the second week. Santa Rosa is the lone Northern California track to schedule regular Wednesday race dates.

The Sonoma County Fair ended its ties with the California Authority of Racing Fairs last year.

Despite running only 13 days in 2013, the meet showed a 3 percent increase in ontrack handle over the 15-day meet in 2012. The average all-sources handle also showed an increase.

Richard Lewis, the fair’s director of racing, credited community support and the efforts of the racing staff and horsemen for last year’s success. Community support remains high going into this year’s meet.

“Everything was new. We had to do it all,” he said of the learning curve he and other members of the fair staff faced last year.

Lewis said he and others learned plenty last year, and that operations should run smoother because of that experience. One of the most important lessons concerned maintenance of the turf course.

“We did learn about the turf course and had too much water on it early, so it got chewed up,” he said.

Lewis said Golden Gate Fields track superintendent Juan Meza was overseeing the main track. Although only a minimal number of runners worked on it early in the week, Lewis said the track looks good and feels good when he walks on it.

The purse structure remains on par with Golden Gate Fields even with the addition of the stakes race for 2-year-old fillies.

“We think both 2-year-old stakes will do well,” Lewis said.

The stakes program includes turf routes for 3-year-olds and older runners of both sexes and an open, five-furlong turf sprint.

Horse population is an overriding concern, just as it is at every Northern California track. Lewis is concerned that more mid- to high-level claimers were taken to Del Mar this year. He said there would also be more trainers shipping from Golden Gate Fields rather than stabling on the grounds.