CHRB Awards Los Alamitos a Fifth Week of 2020 Dates

Los Alamitos Race Course was granted a fifth week of Thoroughbred racing in 2020—up from four weeks—under action approved Sept. 19 by the California Horse Racing Board at its regular monthly meeting.

The decision granted Los Alamitos dates from June 24-July 5 and Dec. 2-22, with the latter being Los Angeles County Fair dates. This came after the track's officials and California Thoroughbred Trainers expressed frustration at the process and awarding of dates during the CHRB's previous meeting Aug. 22 at Del Mar. 

Jack Liebau, vice president of Los Alamitos, said the extra week allows the track to better afford the Los Alamitos Cash Call Futurity (G2) and Starlet Stakes (G1), races that carried purses of $300,000 apiece in 2018.

"With two weeks, there is not enough purse generation to do that," he said. "We also think the extra week allows labor, more jobs, all those reasons."

Despite the additional dates, Los Alamitos officials and CTT executive director Alan Balch remained critical of the CHRB in Thursday's meeting at Los Alamitos. Balch objected to post-Labor Day September dates assigned by CHRB to Santa Anita Park, which are Sept. 9-Oct. 27, suggesting some of those days should be allocated as fair dates at Los Alamitos. In years past, Fairplex Park conducted fair dates in September.

Balch asked for an additional month of discussion from the board before a dates determination is made, but that request was rejected.

"We have to remember the (smaller) horsemen that fill the races for the more accomplished horsemen and owners, the top of the sport," he said.

Thoroughbred Owners of California president and CEO Greg Avioli disagreed with Balch, saying racetracks and horsemen's groups need to operate in the present, not look back. "The fair is gone," he said, referring to Fairplex Park closing in 2014.

Other attendees to the CHRB meeting preferred an assignment of fair dates in the summer as opposed to December, believing it would better complete a fair-racing circuit in California. Michael Brown, treasurer of the Arabian Racing Association of California, asked the CHRB to reassign Los Alamitos fair dates to July, indicating out-of-state interest in these races.

"Those horses will come here if they can run throughout the summer at the fair races," he said. "But if you break up the fair races, then you wind up with horses that leave, and they don't come back."

In addition to the dates allocation, an amendment requiring aspiring trainers in California to work as assistants for a year before being eligible to secure a trainer's license was passed by the CHRB. "Essentially, this calls for an apprenticeship," CHRB executive director Rick Baedeker told commissioners.

Board members questioned whether the state would automatically license trainers who might have secured their licenses in other states without completing such a year, to which Darrell McHargue, CHRB chief steward, said a trainer holding a license out of state would need proof of one year's experience as a trainer or assistant trainer to receive a California license.