L.A. Times will end its horse-racing newsletter

More than four years after it was created, the Los Angeles Times horse-racing newsletter is being shut down after a final edition next week.

Special contributor John Cherwa made the announcement in Monday’s emailed issue, calling it “a business decision” to end the newsletter, which he has edited during its entire run.

“All good things must come to an end,” Cherwa wrote. “This newsletter is going to go away next Monday, coinciding with the end of the Santa Anita meet. ... The reason was simply a business decision, nothing deeper, darker or in any ways a reflection on the content.”

Cherwa said the free email, which was issued four and five times a week with an emphasis on Southern California racing, was created in hopes of luring 2,000 subscribers – but that it “ended up with more than 7,000.”

A career newspaperman who has been an editor in sports departments across the country, Cherwa said he will continue to cover horse racing for the Times, “be it the Triple Crown races, Breeders’ Cup, Santa Anita, Del Mar or Los Alamitos. ... This will allow me to spend more time on more in-depth projects, be they features, enterprise stories or even investigative.”

Even though he and his wife live in Orlando, Fla., Cherwa has long been a press-box regular for big racing dates at Santa Anita, Del Mar and across the country, stopped only in the past year by the pandemic. He was one of only eight writers to cover all three Triple Crown races this spring in person.

Cherwa also leads special projects for the Times, recently editing books published soon after the Dodgers’ and Lakers’ recent championships. He has led the newspaper’s Olympic coverage and is scheduled to travel to Tokyo this summer.