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Originally Posted by dilanesp
Part of the issue here is that for several different reasons, Santa Anita and Del Mar have never wanted all the dates. For Del Mar, they conduct the San Diego County Fair in the early summer and can't run races during that time. For Santa Anita, the grandstand doesn't have modern climate control (it was built to just have ambient air pass through it because Santa Anita was a winter track and most of the time it would be 65 to 70 degrees) and the turf course gets torn up.
And both tracks' managements think that they benefit from fewer dates on the racing calendar. For Del Mar, this is obvious-- a short "special" vacation meet with big attendance is one of the most profitable racing operations in the entire country. For Santa Anita, they certainly would not mind a break in racing before December 26 when they have their big opening day every year.
As I said, what you have here is horsemen who are scrambling around trying to find people to run races on the dates that Del Mar and Santa Anita don't want. That panic is what is driving this conversation; the tracks don't necessarily want what the horsemen want.
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Thanks for this summary -- as a SoCalian, it makes complete sense to me. Because stretching Pomona or Los Al to a mile makes no sense.
Has anyone done any projections on the purse amounts horsemen stand to lose from a shuttered Betfair HP and no local mile-course replacements? If horsemen would be willing to contribute/forego this amount, amortized over several years, could Pomona or Los Al get the job done?
I know that proposal probably reads as sarcasm to most here, but if year-round racing here is so dang important, why shouldn't this proposal be on the table? or a proposal to give some form of ownership to the horsemen in return for lowered takeout or purses?
