The Humboldt County Fair is at a Crossroads

If the Northern California horse racing industry was one of the thoroughbreds on which it depends, it’s come up lame and may not reach the finish line.

And if you extend the metaphor to the Humboldt County Fair Association, it would be the jockey, frantically trying to decide whether to stay in the saddle, hoping the horse can regain its footing, or to leap off before it collapses.

For weeks now, the association has been grappling with seismic shifts in the racing industry as it plans the 2025 fair, with an ultimate decision looming of whether to double down on racing, which would necessitate a new level of financial investment, or step away from what many believe has been the fair’s largest attendance draw for more than a century. And many involved believe the fate of the future of the fair itself may hinge on the decision.

“This is huge,” said association board President Andy Titus. “No matter which direction we go, it’s going to be a big decision for the association, for the community, for the county, for all of the above. … I’m scared of not having horse racing and the fair going down. And I’m scared of having horse racing and the cost of it bringing the fair down. I just don’t know.”

Racing has long taken on an almost mythical status among those who put on the fair, believed to be the proverbial rising tide that lifts all ships. The belief is that horse racing drives attendance, which means more bar and concession sales, more parking revenue, more kids buying wristbands for the carnival rides. And unlike some of the fair’s other draws, racing brings people and their families to the fairgrounds day after day.

But the association has long struggled to buttress that theory with hard numbers, as the believed reverberating impacts of the sport have proven hard to isolate and quantify in the fair’s bookkeeping.

In 2024, preliminary budget numbers — the association has yet to finalize its budget report — show racing having brought in $956,000 in revenue against $962,000 in expenses, penciling out to a net loss of $6,000. But that’s isolating out racing alone, which Titus and others say doesn’t capture the full impact.

“If you look at it as just strictly horse racing and don’t take into account the attendance or the parking or the bars and that it’s your main source of entertainment, most fairs are going to lose money on horse racing,” Titus said. “It’s going to look like horse racing is losing money. … But without horse racing, we’re not going to draw tons of people.”

Titus said he also believes horse racing is key to drawing corporate sponsorships, which brought in $233,000 in revenue last year, saying he suspects they may be reduced by 75 percent without it.

While the association has been working to transition to a business model with diversified revenue streams — with the fairgrounds hosting Christmas and Halloween events, for example — those efforts are still nascent after decades of depending on a 10-day fair to cover the association’s bills for the other 355 days of the year. As such, it’s not a stretch to say the future of the fair to some extent hinges on the success of each year’s event.

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That reality is now crashing into another: Northern California horse racing is an industry in steep decline. Nationwide, horse racing’s popularity has declined amid the rise of online sports betting and concerns over animal welfare. In June, the Stronach Group shuttered Golden Gate Fields in the Bay Area, saying it was going to focus on investing in racing at its Southern California track, Santa Anita Park. Because racing tracks are to some extent interdependent — pulling from the same pool of horses, jockeys and trainers — the news sent shock waves through Northern California. In response, a new venture, Golden State Racing, was created to fill the void but its first meet closed in December after a two-month run that fell far short of financial projections, and the organization closed 2024 $1.2 million in the red.

That prompted the California Authority of Racing Fairs (CARF), which represents all Northern California fair meets other than Santa Rosa, to announce in late January that it would not be submitting applications for racing licenses this year. The jolt of that announcement has layered impacts on the prospects for races at the fairground in Ferndale in August.

First, it adds more uncertainty to the industry and will almost certainly lead many racehorse owners to head to operational tracks in the southern part of the state. Second, it means that if the Humboldt County Fair Association is going to put on races, it’s going to have to do it without CARF’s cost-sharing and administrative support, as the authority helps with both licensing and staffing of the races in Ferndale.

The Humboldt County Fair Association Board of Directors met the day before CARF’s announcement and already appeared to be contemplating a fair without racing.

“Things are very fluid,” Racing Committee Chair Greg Gomes said. “Obviously, folks are hearing things.”

Association CEO Moira Kenny presented a proposed 2025 calendar at the meeting that shrunk the fair to five days — running Aug. 20 through Aug. 24. Kenny explained the hope is that a shorter fair will still draw all of its regular attendees while significantly reducing expenses. (Titus told the Journal that some of the fair’s slower days last year saw only 400 or so attendees, hardly enough to cover the cost of security.)

Adding to the challenges facing this year’s fair, restrictions aimed at curtailing avian flu outbreaks will likely prohibit the fair from holding dairy or poultry shows, which could further hamstring attendance.

Directors expressed some reservation about shortening the fair to just five days but ultimately decided to postpone any decision until their meeting at the end of February.

Shortly before the Journal went to press with this issue, the association announced it would hold a special board meeting Feb. 6 at 1 p.m. with two items on the agenda: a presentation from California Department of Food and Agriculture Deputy Secretary of Fairs and Expositions Michael Flores “and others,” and a discussion of whether the fair should include horse racing in August.

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Titus said Flores is going to urge the association not to hold races in August, viewing racing “as a bad investment going forward,” and he thinks it’s important for the entire board to hear from the state official directly.

Personally, Titus said he thinks the association is still in a position to pull off races, if it decides to do so. While it’s true Northern California is seeing a migration of racehorses south, Titus said Humboldt has the benefit of being close to Oregon and the track in Grants Pass, saying he’s confident the fair could find enough horses to compete. Additionally, while the association would have to proceed without CARF’s support, he said he believes it would be able to find the qualified staff necessary to pull off the meets.

But Titus said he’s concerned about the administrative duties the association would have to take and the costs of putting on the meet without CARF’s backing.

“If the board decides to move forward with horse racing, there are other options outside of California for us to still put on a race meet,” he said. “But it’s got to be financially doable, which is something that none of us know. What scares me is we might be damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

Kenny, meanwhile, is working to put together the association’s 2025 budget amid the sea of uncertainty. She’s prepared two drafts of the document, one with horse racing and one without. Without racing, the budget projects a loss of $15,283 for the year. With racing, the budget projects a profit of $934,000, though it does not appear to account for a projected $991,000 in racing expenses, which would result in a net loss of $57,000.

Titus said his goal for the coming weeks is to make sure the association’s directors are all working with the same information and operating as transparently as possible while making a decision that may decide the future of the fair itself.

“I just feel like we need to make sure before we make a decision that everyone is hearing all the same information from the same people, and then let the chips fall where they may,” he said. “I think all options are on the table. I think we owe it to the community as an association and as a board, to put on a fair in August and as long as we can for the community, so whatever it takes to make that happen.”

The reality of the situation is that the fair has been struggling to make ends meet for years, even before its former bookkeeper, Nina Tafarella, was arrested and pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $400,000 from the organization. The association has struggled to pivot to a financial model less dependent on the annual fair, even as the fair’s profitability has been in decline. With or without racing, Titus said he believes significant changes are necessary if the fair is going to continue as the hallmark of late summer in Humboldt County, as it has been for 165 years.

“We don’t know what the best thing to do is,” Titus said. “What I do know is the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and looking for a different result. And that’s what the fair has been doing for a long time.”

Freelance reporter Linda Stansberry contributed to this report.

Thadeus Greenson (he/him) is the Journal’s news editor. Reach him at (707) 442-1400, extension 321, or thad@northcoastjournal.com.

This article appears in The Humboldt County Fair is at a Crossroads.