The North-South civil war in California horse racing escalated on Tuesday with Santa Anita’s operator saying the Arcadia track might have to close if state officials approve a proposed new northern schedule.
The apparent threat, in a letter from 1/ST Racing executive vice chairman Craig Fravel to members of the California Horse Racing Board, came as the CHRB prepared to meet Thursday and consider a plan by northern interests to replace soon-to-close Golden Gate Fields with a longer meet at the Pleasanton fairgrounds.
In the letter, first reported by the Los Angeles Times and made available to the Southern California News Group, Fravel writes that California racing is “at a crossroads” and its economic problems can be solved only by focusing on the big tracks in Southern California.
If the Pleasanton proposal is approved, Fravel wrote, 1ST/Racing would have to cut race purses at Santa Anita, would reevaluate plans for capital investments at the historic track, and, most ominously, would undertake “an analysis of alternative uses for Santa Anita and San Luis Rey (training facility).”
This amplified rhetoric delivered by Fravel, Del Mar president Josh Rubinstein and Thoroughbred Owners of California president and CEO Bill Nader at the CHRB’s January meeting.
“As noted, the current financial model and required capital expense make no sense and the consolidation of operations as discussed last year at the January board meeting is the only alternative that has been presented,” Fravel wrote.
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Golden Gate Fields, the 83-year-old track in Albany, is scheduled to close for good in June, 16 years after the region lost Bay Meadows. A proposal by three county-fair racing associations would make Pleasanton the year-round hub of Northern California thoroughbred racing, starting with a 10-week meet this fall. Shorter seasons would continue to run at other county fairs.
Fravel called the dates proposal lacking in sufficient detail.
It’s a complicated issue but comes down to money: Southern California racing interests believe that with the additional simulcast betting revenue that they would pull in if there’s less racing up north, they could bolster purses, reverse declines in field sizes and present a more attractive product that draws more wagering nationwide.
Fravel wrote to CHRB members: “While this is understandably disconcerting to (horse) owners, trainers and workers in the North, the ultimate survival of the full ecosystem is at risk.”
The board meets Thursday in Sacramento starting at 9:30 a.m.