Summer race-date allocations for meets at both Pleasanton and Ferndale failed to advance at Thursday's California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) meeting. The former request got voted down and the latter failed to garner enough votes to be decided either way, jeopardizing the prospect of any fairs-style racing in the state for 2025.
The commissioners who voted and stakeholders who testified were split on the best path forward for California racing as a whole, widening an existential Northern-vs.-Southern rift that opened nearly two years ago when The Stronach Group (TSG) announced plans to shutter Golden Gate Fields.
The central issue still revolves around whether the state's racing and breeding would be better off continuing the single-circuit method of nearly year-round meets situated in SoCal (Santa Anita Park, Del Mar Thoroughbred Club and Los Alamitos Race Course), or if NorCal venues should be given a shot to re-establish a foothold now that–all within the past 10 months–Golden Gate has closed, an entity called Golden State Racing failed to run a financially viable meet at Pleasanton, and the California Authority of Racing Fairs (CARF) has shifted away from supporting live meets at county fairs.
Prior to the board considering both proposals Apr. 17, CHRB chairman Gregory Ferraro, DVM, warned the Pleasanton and Ferndale plan presenters that last autumn's Golden State Racing debacle was fresh in the minds of commissioners.
Ferraro said the decision by the board last year to greenlight that failed racing season was “unwise at best or disastrous at worst.” He explained that this time around, those who were advocating for an approval of race dates at fairs venues should “not to expect the board to give the same leeway” in being granted the opportunity to race because of the damage such a decision might do in terms of siphoning horses and revenue from the SoCal tracks, which are also struggling but remain more viable than any entity in the North.
First up was the proposal by a recently formed company called Bernal Park Racing. Backed by longtime California horse owner George Schmitt and the owner/breeder John Harris, that group was seeking 10 race dates at Pleasanton over three weekends spanning June 18-July 6.
Schmitt told commissioners that the entity was prepared to move forward with $2 million in initial capital, and that Bernal was aiming to put together an organization that might replace the functions of CARF in terms of making personnel, services, and a day-to-day racing infrastructure available to any fair in the state that wanted to use its resources to run a meet.
Schmitt advocated for NorCal racing by citing the risk of California's foal crop in the state dropping below 1,000 next year, and he underscored that fairs race meets do make big differences to their local economies while providing lower-class racing opportunities that strengthen California's overall racing.
“We're not in this thing to make a fortune. We're in this business to save horse racing in California,” Schmitt said.
Schmitt said he couldn't promise a horse population of 400, but that he believed Bernal could attract 200 horses to make the Pleasanton meet a go.
Bill Nader, the president and chief executive officer of the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC), testified against the Pleasanton concept and then later against the Ferndale idea, too.
Nader pointed to what he said was a working single-circuit solution that concentrates all racing in SoCal bolstered by relocation perks for former NorCal outfits and a series of lower-level races restricted to horses from that region.
Nader said that the 385 horses that had relocated from NorCal to SoCal this year have “done well” in 73 such restricted races, with 15 other horses from former NorCal outfits winning against open company.
Nader said that meet-over-meet numbers at Santa Anita–which, like the now-shuttered Golden Gate, is also owned by TSG–has improved by “every metric” and that those increases have been “considerable.”
But several of Nader's comments about how well NorCal outfits were faring down South were met with verbal dissension from audience members.
Ferraro, however, seemed to concur with Nader's points when addressing the Pleasanton dates-seekers.
“Your application really has no definite outline of the structure of the organization; the depth and breadth of its capitalization; guarantees,” Ferraro said. “I mean, you can't run a race meet on 200 horses. You just can't. So to avoid the same disaster we had last year, I think any racing organization that is trying to make a go of it needs to have more meat on the bones and have considerably more time to investigate what's available.”
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Ferraro also questioned whether horsemen who have relocated their operations to SoCal would be willing to ship back North for another experimental race meet, or if bettors would turn out to wager on the product.
“We don't know if the public will support it. It's not that we don't wish to give you guys a chance. It's that it doesn't appear as if the public in Northern California is going to support racing. If it's going to be successful, it's going to take significant planning, careful analysis–a lot more than what's being presented here, I think. And that kind of information is going to take a year or two to put together. Better to wait a year or two and have a successful outcome than to fail because you don't have public support.”
CHRB vice chair Oscar Gonzales, who has often been at odds with Ferraro on the North/South issue over the past year, made a motion to approve the Pleasanton dates allocation. He noted that an allocation was not the same thing as granting an actual license to run the dates, which the CHRB traditionally handles as a separate step with another vote required at a subsequent meeting once it receives a more detailed application package.
Gonzales said he was making the motion to “save hundreds of breeders and actually save California racing.” But his motion to approve died for lack of anyone seconding it.
Ferraro then made an alternate motion to deny the application. After receiving a second, commissioners Dennis Alfieri, Brenda Washington Davis and Thomas Hudnut joined Ferraro in voting for the denial, while Gonzales cast the lone opposing vote in the 4-1 outcome.
Against this backdrop, Ferndale was next to present its case for an Aug. 13-Sept. 2 race meet over three weeks that sought un-overlapped simulcast host status.
This was the same arrangement under which Ferndale ran last year, but 2024 was different because there were other supporting NorCal fairs that preceded and followed it.
Andy Titus, the president of the board of directors for the Humboldt County Fair Association (AKA Ferndale), testified that last year Ferndale raised its purses and was intending to do so again this season. He noted that the meet drew “30-plus” California-based trainers in 2024, and that this year's Ferndale meet would be advantageously positioned between two fairs meets in Oregon, giving it the makings of a small two-state circuit.
“I feel like what we're talking about right now is fairly short-sighted,” said Titus, referring to the board's perceived tilt toward protecting SoCal interests. “Yes, the South is doing well. And that's great. But if you eliminate the [largely Northern-based] breeding, and the owners and trainers and staff, sooner or later [that success in the South] is going to dry up as well…
“What about five years from now? Ten years from now?” Titus asked rhetorically. “I understand about 2025. Right now [with Pleasanton not granted dates], we're the only venue in the North that is potentially going to be running. I think keeping something open in the North is very important for California racing. And I feel like the CHRB is supposed to represent the North and the South.”
After more pro-and-con testimony from stakeholders, commissioner Hudnut moved to deny the dates allocation for Ferndale. Alfieri and Ferraro voted in favor of that motion. Gonzales and Davis voted against it.
This set up a 3-2 statutory stalemate, because by California state law, the board's votes do not pass unless four commissioners vote one way or the other. (On Thursday, commissioner Damascus Castellanos was not in attendance, and there is also one current vacancy on the board.)
Ferraro wanted a recess at this point. But Gonzales interjected and called for a different vote, this time with the motion worded to approve the Ferndale allotment.
“Maybe there'll be a change of heart,” Gonzales said. “Maybe the board will look into the eyes of the men and women in this room and understand their responsibility to the state of California, and understand their responsibility that each and every one of us has [to the NorCal stakeholders].”
The voting ended up being the same 3-2 stalemate as on Ferraro's version of the motion, with no commissioners changing their support for or against Ferndale's allotment.
This meant that there was no officially recorded action taken on either version of the Ferndale motion.
Alfieri summed up the situation this way: “Why don't we study this for a year? We don't we take a pause and see? Because to me, this is very disjointed. You know, I'm hearing from people that say, 'Well, we're going to put up all the money.' Great! Where were you a year ago when we had this same discussion? We saw this happening a year ago. And then Golden State Racing, they didn't make it. CARF didn't make it. And this is very troubling. I'm more worried about racing in the state of California….Come back in a year. What's wrong with that? Come back with a plan.”
Gonzales urged the Ferndale supporters to return even sooner than that–like the next CHRB meeting in May.
“Because there's an impasse, I would encourage [Ferndale] to come back [next month],” Gonzales said, adding that by that time Castellanos would be back in attendance and the vacant board spot could be filled by an appointment.
“I think those two [board members] could be decisive [and] I would not lose hope or faith in any way,” Gonzales said.
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