on the cover / By Bob Doran

Eight Days at the Races

With horse racing in decline, how does a small track like Ferndale survive?

(Aug. 13, 2009)  The June 5 meeting of the California Horse Racing Board at the Santa Anita Race Track was almost over. But before going into the public comment portion there was just one more quick item: the approval of a batch of contracts — for veterinarians, for drug testing at UC Davis and for race overseers called stewards.

“Pretty big numbers,” commented CHRB Chairman John Harris, probably in regard to the $2 million deal with Davis. He wondered, “Is there anything significantly different?”

And they’re off! Horses leave the starting gate at a 2008 Ferndale Race.

GALLERY >

“No,” said Kirk Breed, a former racing industry lobbyist who is now CHRB’s executive director. “The only thing on the steward services, and also the veterinarian services, is we are going into a very tight fiscal year and so the tracks are trying to reduce expenses …”

Chairman Harris noted that there would also be a change in the number of stewards required for certain races. Instead of the traditional panel of three for a quarter horse race meet at Los Alamitos and for harness racing at Cal-Expo, those races would now only require two. The Humboldt County Fair races at Ferndale — the smallest event in the state, which get underway this Friday — would only require one steward. With no further comment or discussion, the package passed with nothing but “ayes.”

Once upon a time, horse racing was seen as a way to fund county fairs around California. For many communities, it was the one time per year that some form of gambling was permissible. Nowadays, though, the racing industry isn’t the cash cow it once was. The decline in revenue has taken its toll — the Humboldt County Fair board has been warning state officials that it must find new sources of revenue if the fair itself is not to perish.

The CHRB’s action on June 5 was its way of helping the Humboldt County Fair to survive. Because of the state budget crisis, the fair would have to pay the stewards out of its own pocket for the first time; the racing board wanted to ease the blow by changing the rules.

It turned out that the changes would be wiped off the books the very next month, after an uprising of opposition. And the Humboldt County Fair went right back to where it started — riding an increasingly expensive, decreasingly profitable gambling event straight toward insolvency.

The change in rules was in direct response to hard times for small tracks like Ferndale in the midst of a long-term slump in California’s horse racing industry.

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