The California Horse Racing Board approved race date allocations for the state’s southern tracks Aug. 17.
The biggest change is at Del Mar, where it will get an eight-week summer season with a dark week preceding it. That would be followed by a five-week fall meet—a week longer than the last two years as the track will host the Breeders’ Cup next year.
Santa Anita Park senior vice president and general manager Nate Newby requested “a very similar calendar” to recent years with a 31-week meet beginning Dec. 26 and concluding June 18. Its fall meet would be reduced by a week, down to five to accommodate Del Mar hosting the Breeders’ Cup. Santa Anita would then open again Dec. 18 next year.
Coming off the Stronach Group saying it would consider extending the final season of racing at Golden Gate Fields by six months, California Thoroughbred Trainers executive director Alan Balch asked the board not to move forward with approving the dates for Southern California tracks.
“Since the state is integrated because horses run (in Northern in Southern California), we strongly urge this board not to allocate Southern California dates given the pendency of potential legislation and for many other reasons, until all the stakeholders can get together,” Balch said.
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However, Thoroughbred Owners of California president and CEO Bill Nader countered with an urging to move forward with the 2024 dates for the state’s southern tracks.
“It has been a long-standing position to support Del Mar as the flagship meeting for California and the counterpart for Saratoga in the east,” Nader said. “That’s what Del Mar is to the west. And we thought to secure that position for Del Mar to maintain competitiveness especially when we don’t have secondary streams of income to be able to attract and recruit horses to the flagship meet.”
But when it came time to vote, all but one board member voted in favor of the schedule.
