By DRF.com
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (May 19, 2024) — The Golden State Racing meeting at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton, Calif., this fall will offer approximately $170,000 per day in purses and will run largely on a Friday-through-Sunday basis for nine weeks from Oct. 19 to Dec. 15, according to an agreement reached earlier this month between the Thoroughbred Owners of California and a consortium of executives and horsemen that will operate the race season.
The terms were part of an agreement reached between the TOC and the California Authority of Racing Fairs in advance of the Alameda County Fair’s summer meeting, which will run for 13 racing days from June 14 to July 7. CARF officials will run the Golden State Racing meeting.
The Golden State Racing meeting will replace Golden Gate Fields on the Northern California circuit later this year. Golden Gate Fields is scheduled to close permanently on June 9.
The Golden State Racing meeting will have a minimum of 208 Thoroughbred races through the season, a minimum of 24 races per week and at least three days of racing each week, according to contract terms.
The contract states that racing will be held for 49 weeks in Northern California in 2025. Racing dates for next year will be discussed by the California Horse Racing Board later this year. Dates are typically assigned in late summer or early fall.
The purse distribution of $170,000 for the Golden State Racing autumn meeting includes overnight races and stakes as well as some bonuses. By comparison, the current Golden Gate Fields meeting has distributed an average of $119,167, before bonuses, on six days of racing this month through Saturday.
Golden Gate Fields cut overnight purses by 25 percent at the beginning of the current meeting on Dec. 26 because of a purse overpayment of $3 million in recent years.
Golden Gate Fields has recovered a majority of those funds through a lower purse structure, and from significant revenue gained via simulcasting on five days since mid-April in which live racing was canceled because of insufficient entries.
The Alameda County Fair will have a purse distribution of approximately $160,000 this year, down from $170,000 in 2023, Larry Swartzlander, the executive director of CARF, told the racing board last Thursday.
The Golden State Racing-TOC agreement has led to a revision of racing dates in September, adding three dates at the Big Fresno Fair to close a gap in the original schedule announced last year.
In September, racing will be held at the Humboldt County Fair in Ferndale on the weekends of Sept. 1-2 and 7-8. Fresno will race from Sept. 13-15 under the Humboldt County Fair license, before running on Sept. 21-22 and Sept. 28-29 under its own license.
The Fresno fair runs through Oct. 13.
In past years, Golden Gate Fields has raced from late August to early October, overlapping partially with the Humboldt fair meetings and racing until the weekend before the start of the Fresno meeting.