The California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) on Thursday voted down two separate proposals to allocate 2025 race dates to entities at Ferndale and Fresno that wanted to keep Thoroughbred racing going on the now-nonexistent Northern California circuit.
The 4-3 votes on each measure dashed what appeared to be the last remaining hopes for a 2025 resuscitation of the sport in a region of the state that as recently as two summers ago boasted a year-round rotation of racing anchored by one commercial track and five fair venues.
The June 19 decisions by the CHRB marked the third straight month that supporters of NorCal racing had tried but failed to advance attempts to race at Ferndale.
The April CHRB meeting resulted in a vote-down of racing at Pleasanton and a failure to garner enough votes for a decision either way on Ferndale. The May CHRB meeting ended with a 4-3 vote against awarding August and September dates to Ferndale.
On June 13, Ferndale tried again but got rebuffed, even after switching its request to six dates over three weekends in October, which would be outside of when the county fair at that property would be operational.
The Fresno request for seven dates in September and October, with only one date coinciding with when its fair would be in session, also didn't pass.
The CHRB voting bloc hasn't budged on any of the NorCal proposals since May.
Voting “no” for all versions of the NorCal meets (plus the simulcast-revenue privileges that would have gone with the dates allotment) were CHRB chairman Gregory Ferraro, DVM, plus commissioners Dennis Alfieri, Damascus Castellanos and Thomas Hudnut.
Voting “yes” to keep NorCal alive were vice-chair Oscar Gonzales and commissioners Brenda Washington Davis and Peter Stern.
The central arguments for and against a revival of NorCal racing haven't changed much over the past 60 days.
Racing at Pleasanton | Vassar Photography
But the emotional intensity over the difficult situation has noticeably ramped up, with stakeholders on both sides becoming increasingly argumentative and accusatory. In-person attendees at Thursday's meeting, as they have in the recent past, peppered some parts of the testimony with derisive interjections when the opposing side said something they didn't agree with.
The votes on Thursday did nothing to close the chasm on the best path forward for California racing as a whole, increasing an existential North-vs.-South rift that opened nearly two years ago when The Stronach Group (TSG) announced plans to shutter Golden Gate Fields, the main commercial licensee in NorCal.
TSG also owns Santa Anita Park, and that prominent SoCal track, along with Del Mar Thoroughbred Club and the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC), have lobbied hard for centralizing all of the state's racing and simulcast revenues in the South on a single circuit that also includes Los Alamitos Race Course.
Those entities remain firm in their belief that concentrating all of California's racing in the South is in the best long-term interest of the state as a whole. Some representatives have asserted that the South would be “cannibalized” by what they characterize as unrealistic, not-well-organized, and tenuously financed attempts to make a go of race meets in the North with an allegedly too-thin horse population.
NorCal interests, on the other hand, argue that they have both the horses and proper financial backing to pull off successful small meets, and they are firm in their belief that it's a mistake to concentrate the entirety of the state's racing in one, largely urban geographic area.
The North proponents have articulated complaints that the TOC isn't representing their interests, and that the CHRB isn't extending support to smaller-scale racing outfits that cannot compete at Santa Anita or Del Mar.
They also assert that if NorCal slides off the grid, so too will the state's quickly diminishing foal crop, because the North is where the bulk of the breeding farms are.
Ferndale's management has consistently portrayed a loss of racing there as a severe blow to the local community, and operators of other fairs contend that without the attraction and revenue from racing and simulcasting, the county fairs themselves will be in danger of not being able to operate.
All stakeholders seem to agree that a revenue infusion is needed for statewide racing to get on firmer footing, perhaps in the form of some type of slot-machine gaming being allowed at the tracks.
But that type of gambling requires legislation at the state level that is beyond the CHRB's power to grant.
Dr. Gregory Ferraro | courtesy of the CHRB
Some commissioners, particularly Alfieri, have advocated for a cooling-off period of study so that the NorCal proposals can be better assembled for 2026.
It remains fresh in the minds of commissioners that the CHRB okayed a venture by an entity called Golden State Racing that failed to conduct a financially viable meet last autumn at Pleasanton.
Back at the April meeting, Ferraro described that decision last year by the CHRB as “unwise at best or disastrous at worst.”
Ferraro had explained in April that those who were advocating for an approval of race dates at NorCal venues in 2025 should “not to expect the board to give the same leeway” because of the damage such a decision might do in terms of siphoning horses and simulcasting revenue from the SoCal tracks, which are also struggling but remain more viable than any entity in the North.
On Thursday, Larry SwartzlanderBernal Park Racing, the director of racing for Bernal Park Racing, the group has been trying to financially back and operate this year's proposed meets at Pleasanton, Ferndale and Fresno, warned that NorCal racing is at a now-or-never inflection point.
“If we don't race in 2025, if the fairs don't show that they want to continue on in this business, I think the door's closed” for the future, Swartzlander said.
“I mean, we can sit here and then come back here in 2026 and give you another calendar. But if it's going to be the same criticisms, it's not going to work,” Swartzlander continued. “It's going to be worse, because we all know in this business once you close, it's difficult to reopen.”
Del Mar president Josh Rubinstein was adamant that greenlighting racing in NorCal would be detrimental to the South.
“I believe the business case has been made over the last several meetings that a pop-up race meet in the North is not in the best interest of the overall California ecosystem,” Rubinstein said. “And Del Mar has been very clear throughout this entire process that we will not compete with similar conditions if dates are awarded to the North during this time frame. California simply does not have the horse population to operate parallel race meets.”
Bill Nader, the president and chief executive officer of the TOC, asked critics who claim that his organization doesn't represent all of California's owners to be mindful of the much larger picture.
Bill Nader | Benoit
“We're fighting–and we've said it many times at meetings before–a game here where we're dependent solely on pari-mutuel income. We don't have HHR [historical horse racing]. We don't have VLTs
. We don't have any of the incremental revenue sources that competing states have,” Nader said.
“So every move we make here, we have to do it responsibly, in a way that protects and preserves our foundation. And if we can get to the day when we have alternative revenue streams and we're in a better position, it's an entirely different discussion,” Nader said.
The CHRB's Hudnut expressed his opinion this way during a break between the two votes that denied the NorCal dates:
“I can imagine sitting in the audience and thinking that some of us cast our votes in a cavalier manner. But I just want to assure you that there isn't a commissioner up here who wouldn't like to see racing in the North, at the fairs, and in the South…
“We, at the moment, have a problem with viability of horse racing in this state, regardless of where it is. [And] it's too bad, because we honestly would like [two circuits],” Hudnut said. “But in the final analysis, it's not about horses. Unfortunately, it's about money.”
Following Hudnut's comments, vice chair Gonzales, who has voted differently than his colleague on all of the NorCal issues, weighed in.
“I appreciate what you're saying, [but] I just think this board decided Ferndale didn't matter again,” Gonzales said.
“So regardless of what we think–the complexities, the legislative remedies, all of these–it's really, 'Do communities matter?' And I just believe there are some [people, not only on] this board, but many in society, that have discounted rural areas. And really, the debate that's going on in this country is which communities matter [more than] others.”
Gonzales summed up his point at a different juncture: “This is democracy at work. Sometimes governance works. Sometimes it doesn't. But I encourage people not to give up. Because this board, we're going to come and go. Horses have been around for a very long time. We all know that. And horses will outlast this board and many others. So I remain optimistic.”
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