Last week, you may have heard, the California Horse Racing Board allocated 26 race dates to Pleasanton in Northern California. This, of course, is intended to partially make up for the dates that will be lost when Golden Gate closes for good in June. There are still some hurdles the horsemen must clear before these dates actually happen, but it looks as though, at least for this year, racing in the north will continue beyond fair season.
The Board’s decision came after a somewhat threatening letter was sent to them by The Stronach Group, owner of Santa Anita and San Luis Rey (their training facility). The argument (joined by Del Mar and Los Alamitos) is that Cal racing can no longer support two circuits, and that it should be consolidated in the south. If not, said the letter, “an analysis of alternative uses for Santa Anita and San Luis Rey will be undertaken in short order.” Those TSG’s properties are probably worth north of a billion, so maybe they’ll just sell and get out of California entirely (TSG also owns the soon-to-be-sold Golden Gate).
In an LA Times piece published ahead of Thursday’s meeting, John Cherwa wrote of Santa Anita, “[T]he land is valuable. Way more valuable than running horse races three days a week, seven months a year.” He went on to say: “The Stronach Group is private so there is no transparency into its finances. But it’s not difficult to deduce from the small crowds (despite inflated attendance figures on big days) and short racing fields that the track is struggling. Senior officials pointed to $31 million in operating losses over the last five years. All the tracks need supplemental forms of gaming income, such as Historical Horse Racing in Kentucky (slot machines pretending to be games of skill), to survive.”
Those parentheticals, by the way, are Cherwa’s, not mine. He continued: “The finances [selling] make sense, even if it means cutting loose a part of the family business in a sport that is in serious decline in a state that offers almost no incentives to stick around.”
Even if northern racing doesn’t continue beyond this year, Cherwa says the south will not necessarily be saved: “Sending simulcast money to the south is only a Band-Aid to a bigger problem. The purses are too small because there is no supplemental gaming money to help prop up the purses.”
He’s talking, mind you, about one of Racing’s crown-jewel tracks. If storied Santa Anita can’t survive without “supplemental forms of gaming income” – more accurately described as subsidies, corporate welfare – then, moving forward, what tracks can? Saratoga, Keeneland, Churchill, maybe Del Mar? I can’t think of any others. And, incidentally, those first three tracks do receive subsidies. So once again it comes to this: The vast majority of horseracing in America is moribund; we (Americans) don’t want it anymore. Are you listening state legislatures?
You`re absolutely correct Wanda. From our experience this industry is very corrupt & dirty as are many industries involved with gamboling & horses. The declining foal #s here in my state is trying to be increased with state subsidies provided by a HUB tax that funds foals born in our state once they are registered. Those HUB tax generated $$ would be better spent on the care of horses later in their lives or for use in therapy programs for people with horses front & center.
When, not if, the horse racing lobbyists scream “jobs, jobs, jobs (will be lost)” and claim that the horse racing industry adds so much to the economy because of all these “jobs, jobs, jobs” you know for a fact that the legislative branch of of elected state senators and representatives will listen to that.
Unfortunately, it’s not just about jobs. However the various industries that exploit horses as a commodity and as a business will cry/scream “FOUL!” if they don’t get their “precious” way.
The Stronach Group doesn’t want to sell Santa Anita Park or San Luis Rey Downs anymore than “Doc” Ed Allred wanted to ditch his Los Alamitos racecourse. The threats are a ploy to get their own “precious” way.
It’s a real problem NOW of: Where are the backside trackworkers going to stay after Golden Gate Fields shuts down in June??? Because it is going to cost millions of dollars here and millions of dollars there to accommodate compliance issues plus the extra “800 horses” from Golden Gate Fields, a commercial racetrack, to the Pleasanton Fairgrounds, which is not set up as a commercial racetrack.
There is limited housing for backside trackworkers in/at Pleasanton.
It isn’t just TSG making demands. The different groups of racing industry people in the North will be in there screaming for their piece of the pie!
I think the legislators are going to listen to all those voices that are screaming for money and crying “FOUL!” for their jobs.
When it comes to legislators listening to people who want to exploit horses or listening to horses, or people who recognize horses as sentient beings, to heck with the horses as sentient beings because horses are recognized as a commodity in our society anyway. Sickening but fact.
These different racing factions will continue to have a very difficult time filling race cards with a steadily declining population of Thoroughbred racehorses. Every year the number of new foals declines. It’s a dirty, corrupt business but the racing industry people have a way of putting on a great mask, so to speak.
It’s really a crying shame that the laws in California regarding Animal Welfare in horse racing are not enforced and same with the Business Conduct Code for the California Horse Racing Board.