No deal yet: Golden Gate, Ferndale cannot agree on 2023 dates

A disagreement over a single summer weekend is keeping Northern California track operators from knowing all their racing dates in 2023.

Executives at Golden Gate Fields in Berkeley and the Humboldt County Fair in Ferndale both want to have Thoroughbred races Aug. 25-27. When the matter went to the California Horse Racing Board at its meeting Thursday in Sacramento, no one was budging.

“We’re at a stalemate,” said Larry Swartzlander, executive director of the California Authority of Racing Fairs. “That’s simply where we’re at.”

“I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel with regard to us coming to a suitable arrangement,” Golden Gate general manager David Duggan told the board.

Although the board voted 3-2 in favor of letting Ferndale race without competition from Golden Gate that weekend, four votes were needed to pass the motion. For the moment, no Northern California races have been authorized for the second half of August.

It all comes down to money. Asked how much losing those three racing dates would cost, the bosses at each track said it would be at least $200,000 in commissions from simulcasting.

“Humboldt County Fair simply, financially, cannot operate in the current configuration,” Swartzlander said of overlapping dates for a fourth summer in a row. “It’s imperative that they have two weeks. The second week generates some $200,000 in commissions that makes them stable, and they can actually make some money on the fair.”

Asked why Golden Gate could not give up three days from a racing calendar that covers 10 months, Duggan said the turf racing that weekend was vital.

“I think it would be a shame to deprive our owners and, indeed, our trainers of the ability to run on the grass, which we had intended to do that week,” said Duggan, who put the potential loss of commissions at $250,000.

Bill Nader, the head of the Thoroughbred Owners of California, added his support of Golden Gate, saying, “The value of the turf course during that particular week is something that shouldn’t be understated.”

Alan Balch, executive director of California Thoroughbred Trainers, took it one step further, saying, “The vast, overwhelming majority of horsemen prefer to have Golden Gate racing (in late August). Not just because of the turf course but for reasons of purses, viability of Golden Gate and so forth.”

Humboldt County Fair attorney Jim Morgan maintained that Golden Gate, which is owned by 1/ST Racing, would do just fine without those three dates and that the half-mile track at Ferndale needed to have the Northern California stage to itself.

“One week to Golden Gate doesn’t mean as much as one week to Humboldt,” Morgan said. “I beseech you to let this venue survive. It is racing the way it should be. It is a historical experience of live racing that should be preserved.”

Balch, who called on the CHRB to keep the overlapping dates, questioned the desperation.

“The financial viability of Humboldt doesn’t seem to be an issue,” he said. “We’ve been under the impression for some reason that this is a dire situation that Ferndale needs these un-overlapped weeks. That doesn’t seem to be the case, according to the media coverage and the financial viability of the fair.”

Because neither side had the votes to get its calendar approved, Northern California racing remained in limbo not just for those three days but for most of two weeks. CARF had proposed to race at Humboldt from Aug. 16 to 27. Golden Gate made plans to open its meet Aug. 25.

If negotiations between the tracks remain unfruitful, and if the CHRB’s racing-dates committee cannot broker a compromise, the full board would be expected to try again at its next scheduled meeting March 16.

CHRB vice chairperson Oscar Gonzales and members Brenda Washington Davis and Wendy Mitchell voted Thursday in favor of letting Humboldt have those August dates to itself. Chairperson Greg Ferraro and Tom Hudnut voted against that motion. Members Dennis Alfieri and Damascus Castellanos were absent.