CHRB Mandates CTT, Tracks Reach Agreement by October

A contentious meeting of the California Horse Racing Board Sept. 15 illustrated ongoing differences between some tracks and racing entities in the state.

The board's monthly meeting in Sacramento, Calif., saw officials from Del Mar and 1/ST Racing, which operates Santa Anita Park and Golden Gate Fields, announce that they had not come to terms with the California Thoroughbred Trainers organization over a race meet agreement. As a result, the CHRB did not hear agenda items Thursday related to the allocation of race days for meets this fall at Golden Gate and Del Mar.

The entities have not come to terms on such agreements for the past three years, leaving the CHRB to award race dates by applying old agreements. Commissioners have stated they will no longer do so.

At issue are the fair procedures for a trainer should a track wish to bar him or her from their facility, as 1/ST Racing did when it prohibited Hall of Fame trainer Jerry Hollendorfer from competing at its tracks after he had a spate of breakdowns at Santa Anita and Golden Gate in the early part of 2019.

Hollendorfer sued, and this June, the lawsuit was settled. Terms were not disclosed, but speakers during Thursday's meeting indicated the dispute proved expensive, with CTT executive director Alan Balch saying the ban was "subject to lengthy, two years worth of multi-million dollar litigation."

1/ST Racing CEO Craig Fravel said they should propose a meeting with a trainer they plan to exclude and hearing their side before a subsequent decision. "Then if they disagree with that they will have the opportunity to take it to an independent arbitrator," he said.

But the CTT is not agreeable to the 1/ST Racing and Del Mar proposal, believing it leaves a trainer having to prove his/her case. 1/ST Racing, as a private property owner, believes it is their right to determine who races at their facilities. 

"The tracks maintain that when they make an accusation against a trainer that the trainer then would have the burden of proof. And that flips about 230 years of American jurisprudence on its head," said attorney Michael Brewer, who represents the CTT.

Fravel said they are limited by some of their investigative powers, not being able to subpoena records like a government agency could, for example.

The CTT has reached race meet agreements with other racetracks in the state.

Commissioners made it clear Thursday that the groups have until the next board meeting in October to settle their differences.

"You could probably solve it back there in the corner in about 10 minutes," said chair Dr. Greg Ferraro. "But sooner or later, somebody has to pull you up and say, 'Enough is enough. Solve the problem.'" 

The CHRB agreed not to award any dates absent a signed race meet agreement, with only commissioner Dennis Alfieri voting against the motion.

"We're simply saying you guys have a month to come back with it and then we'll entertain your race money agreement, but if not, we're going to impose our decision on the burden of proof issue," commissioner Wendy Mitchell said while slightly amending the motion.

Following that hot topic, tempers flared between track representatives over allocations of race dates. The North California fairs sparred with Golden Gate over the schedule in the northern part of the state, and Los Alamitos Race Course and Del Mar were at odds over who controls simulcasting the week before the start of the Del Mar summer season. Friction was also apparent between commissioners on the issues.

In a compromise, the CHRB passed a motion granting Del Mar the week in 2023 with the intent to give Los Alamitos that week or a comparable one in 2024. Mitchell dissented. At times on Thursday, friction was apparent in discussions between Mitchell and Jack Liebau, vice president at Los Alamitos.

The meeting became more harmonious in the final hour, with the board passing an amendment to align the state's apprentice jockey weight allowances with the Association of Racing Commissioners International model. It also expanded required postmortem examinations and necropsies to include horses that die or are euthanized within 72 hours of leaving a CHRB-regulated property. This could apply to a horse taken to a clinic for treatment, CHRB executive director Scott Chaney said.

Later in his executive director's report, Chaney remarked that betting handle in the state was down 7% during the month of August. This came despite an increase in field size during a successful Del Mar summer racing season in which no horses died during racing over the nine-week meet. Four horses died when not racing, three from sudden death, which can include heart attacks, and another from a stall accident injury.

"So no racing fatalities is quite a feat given that they have 2,000 horses stabled on their backside," Chaney said.