CHRB Grants Five Weeks to Los Al Thoroughbreds in 2020

[Wandering Eyes]

The California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) completed its 2020 allocation of Thoroughbred race dates in southern California Thursday by granting a five-week split season to Los Alamitos Race Course.

In terms of blocks of allocated weeks (with the scheduling of the individual race dates to be determined next year, as per CHRB custom), Los Alamitos will race Thoroughbred meets between June 24 and July 5, then Dec. 2-22.

This represents a one-week addition to the four-week Los Alamitos aggregate dates block that was initially proposed and discussed at the August CHRB meeting by tacking on the Dec. 16-22 segment.

In theory, the December 2020 dates at Los Alamitos are considered to be dates that traditionally have “belonged” to the Los Angeles County Fair (LACF), even though the county will not conduct any actual fair in December and the former venue for its autumn fair, Fairplex Park, stopped hosting horse races in 2014. Los Alamitos has hosted the LACF block of race dates since 2015.

At last month’s CHRB meeting, commissioners voted in most of a new SoCal race dates schedule that, for the first time in decades, did not include a block of September dates at a designated county fair allotment (either Fairplex or Los Alamitos) after the traditional Labor Day conclusion of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club meet.

So in 2020, the SoCal circuit will go straight to Santa Anita Park once Del Mar ends, a change that was protested by Los Alamitos officials when it came up for vote last month and was discussed at length again Thursday.

The 2020 northern California race dates were also on the agenda for Thursday’s meeting, but the board voted to push back its decision on them until its October meeting after stakeholders on the multi-track NorCal circuit reported they were close to being able to present an agreed-upon calendar to the CHRB.

In other CHRB business, the board voted to advance to the public commentary period a proposed rule amendment that would tighten the process for becoming a licensed trainer by requiring a year of on-track experience as an assistant trainer in addition to the existing requirement that an applicant must pass an examination (known industry-wide as a trainer’s test).

“Currently, you pass the test to become a trainer [and] you’re immediately licensed,” CHRB executive director Rick Baedeker explained. “This puts a filter, if you will, between passing the test and being licensed as a permanent trainer. Essentially, this calls for a one-year apprenticeship, where a person that passes the testing then has to work for a licensed trainer, be vouched for at the end of that year before the stewards, and then can become permanently licensed.”

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