Santa Anita Officials Confident Future Cards Will Fill

On the day Santa Anita Park could not field enough entries to fill its scheduled live racing card, the California Horse Racing Board met at the Arcadia, Calif., racetrack.

But with a pair of Santa Anita executives before them to discuss recent race meets at the track, the CHRB commissioners did not directly broach the subject.

After the meeting, Joe Morris, the senior vice president of West Coast operations for The Stronach Group, said he was not concerned with Santa Anita filling cards for the rest of the meet, which runs through July 4.

"We expect to draw on schedule and as planned through the rest of the year," Morris said, reinforcing similar comments made by Santa Anita racing secretary Rick Hammerle April 23. "There's a little bit of a sickness going around, which can happen on occasion when 2-year-olds come in from different places, so that's not helping the situation. ... The rain earlier this year is part of it, too, but it's never one thing.

"We're continuing to work with (the California Thoroughbred Trainers) and (Thoroughbred Owners of California)."

BALAN: Santa Anita Cancels April 27 Racing

Santa Anita pushed the CHRB in 2016 to give the track contiguous meets this racing season, which essentially amounts to one large meet from Dec. 26-July 4, instead of having a short Los Alamitos Race Course meet split the dates in April, as it did in 2016. A reason cited during that discussion last year was that Santa Anita could build "momentum" with a longer meet, which Morris feels is still building even after the cancellation of Thursday's racing.

"I think we are (building momentum)," Morris said. "But we certainly planned on running (today) and would have liked to run (today)."

Included in the discussions Thursday during the CHRB meeting were talks about why tickets get stuck in tote machines, marketing and stabling in both regions of California, and fair-circuit carryover pools from meet to meet.

CHRB commissioner Madeline Auerbach did take issue with Morris during the Santa Anita discussion, however, regarding the track's policy on how it handles its large meeting. She felt Santa Anita sent mixed messages to horsemen and gamblers by indicating a meet ending (April 9) and beginning (April 14) in some areas, and a December-to-July meet in others.

"On the one hand, you're saying we've stopped this meet and started another, when there's really no breaks between the two meets," Auerbach said. "So you did some things where it looked like you closed the meet (like jockey and trainer standings). ... It seemed like an arbitrary thing to do to roll back the dates. ... The other thing that seemed arbitrary—although I understand why you did it, because you wanted more money, and we all do—was keeping the jackpot (Pick 6 carryover) going (instead of having a mandatory payout).

"I think you've confused the horsemen, we've created some unhappiness, and we're struggling with some inventory management and getting these horses to run."