By Bloodhorse.com
DEL MAR, Calif. (Aug. 21, 2015) — After multiple months of delays for negotiations, the 2016 racing calendar for the Northern and Southern California circuits was approved by the California Horse Racing Board Aug. 20 at Del Mar.
In Southern California, Los Alamitos Race Course will pick up three weeks of racing—between April 14 and May 1—splitting Santa Anita Park‘s monster early-year schedule as it stood in 2015, when it ran from late December to late June. But Los Alamitos will lose the July dates it has carried in its first two seasons of Thoroughbred racing to Santa Anita.
The contentious Southern California discussion meandered at times, touching everything from still-lingering stabling issues in the aftermath of Hollywood Park’s closure to the weather at Santa Anita in September. Santa Anita and Del Mar jointly made a proposal without Los Alamitos gaining the April dates, and Los Alamitos filed a proposal to retain its July dates and gain April, but in the end, both had to give something up under pressure from the CHRB, which made the August meeting a deadline for negotiations and stuck to it. Del Mar essentially retained the same dates as 2015, minus the days of the Breeders’ Cup, which will be at Santa Anita in 2016.
“There is no good answer … Everybody is going to be a little bit unhappy and going through this process, with the number of conversations we’ve had to try to reach a conclusion, we made a commitment to everyone at the last meeting, and even in the meeting before, that we’d make a decision on this day,” CHRB chairman Chuck winner said, thumping the table to emphasize his point. “We’re going to keep that commitment. The fact that you guys haven’t been able to reach a conclusion that satisfies you, up to this point, did not warrant, in my view, kicking the can down the road.”
In the Northern California decision, the 2016 dates will essentially remain on the same schedule as 2015, with only Stockton’s fair dates moving two weeks back from its 2015 mid-September slate, but two fair jurisdictions were not shy about voicing their displeasure.
The Humboldt County Fair in Ferndale was the first to speak out about its date structure. Ferndale is the only fair site to run with an overlap against Stronach Group-owned Golden Gate Fields from Aug. 17 to Aug. 30.
“All race meets matter and the smallest race meet matters … We’ve done our end of the bargain and we’d appreciate, like every other race meet, to have some part of our fair without overlap and access to host status,” said Jim Morgan, who represented the Humboldt Fair.
Morgan also pleaded with the CHRB for host fees, which mostly go toGolden Gate Fields during that time.
“All I ask is you give Humboldt the same fair shake every other race meet gets,” Morgan said. “If we can’t have a weekend without overlap, at least give us half of the host status so we can sustain.”
Jerome Hoban of the Alameda County Fair at Pleasanton also took issue with its date allocation, which had the Fourth of July holiday late in Pleasanton’s meeting. He also said the Alameda Fair might be forced to run races outside of the dates of its fair.
“I beg this board to understand the nuances of the fairs and plead that everybody understands that the fairs are good for racing,” Hoban said. “They introduce people to racing. Golden Gate Fields is not introducing people to racing, except for perhaps on Saturdays.”
In a presentation at the beginning of the discussion on Northern California racing dates, Stronach Group representative Scott Daruty said Golden Gate lost $2 million in 2014 and is projecting to lose $2.2 million in 2015 largely because the Bay Area track is stabling horses when the track isn’t running. He said Golden Gate is losing $1.2 million on stabling costs on incremental expenses by staying open as a training track during fair meetings, and pitched new legislation that would restructure stabling and vanning funds and management in Northern California.