California Horse Racing Board

It was one of the better Breeders' Cups that we have seen in a long time and it featured great performances and safe racing, exactly the daily double the Breeders' Cup hopes to hit every year. But the good news has been overshadowed this week by a controversy. Why was White Abarrio (Race Day) scratched just minutes before the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile? The owners, C2 Racing Stable, LLC and Gary Barber, want to know, claiming the horse was "perfectly sound." "There's nothing wrong with him," co-owner Mark Cornett...

When 2023 GI Breeders' Cup Classic winner White Abarrio (Race Day) was scratched in the moments before the field loaded into the starting gate for Saturday's GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile at Del Mar, it was on the recommendation of the on-track veterinarian in a call to the stewards. Some of the horse's connections--comprised of C2 Racing Stable, Gary Barber, and La Milagrosa Stable--have been vocal on social media and in the media in the days since about their disagreement with the call. Tuesday afternoon, C2 Racing Stable posted the...

DEL MAR, CA - Like clockwork, the call over the radio went out promptly at 2:45 p.m. Pacific Time on Wednesday afternoon. "Breeders' Cup Investigators this is the 48-hour warning for the Juvenile Turf Sprint, please be aware," said the voice. "Again, that is 48 hours until the Juvenile Turf Sprint." Repeated by the day shift control room manager Tyler Durand for each of the four subsequent races on the Friday card and the next afternoon for the nine races carded for Saturday's slate, the announcements are a way to...

The California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) on Thursday approved a slate of 2026 Thoroughbred race dates that will closely resemble the state's 2025 schedule. Over the last decade or so, hammering out the state's annual race-dates calendar has usually been a long, controversial and often argumentative process that gets drawn out over many monthly commission and sub-committee meetings, with stakeholders often testifying and advocating for hours on end and some entities not pleased with their eventual allotments. But with the demise of the entire Northern California racing circuit, and Southern...

Just over 20 minutes had passed when Darren Filkins dislodged the irritant in his craw concerning the future of Harris Farms without its eponymous captain, John, who passed this July. "People were talking dispersal," said Filkins, about Fasig-Tipton's recent digital sale of around 90 Harris homebreds. "I even corrected people yesterday. 'Oh, I heard you're shutting down Harris farms.' 'Nope.' I don't know where they heard it. We're not shutting down Harris Farms. We're committed to being in this." Sitting at a table in Del Mar's backstretch cafeteria and presiding...

John C. Harris, one of California's most respected leaders in agriculture and Thoroughbred breeding, has passed away peacefully at the age of 81. Born July 14, 1943, Harris was a lifelong resident of Fresno County. He attended local elementary and high schools before earning his degree from UC Davis. He proudly served his country in the United States Army. Harris was a passionate farmer, rancher, and businessman who dedicated his life to stewarding the land and advancing California agriculture. As the driving force behind Harris Farms, one of the state's...

In an era when corporate-controlled entities are actively looking for ways to close down much larger racetracks in various areas throughout America, the Humboldt County Fair Association--better known as Ferndale--stood out in recent months for its dogged desire to get approval to run a three-weekend race meet at the Northern California half-miler, even after the other county fairs tracks on the once-robust circuit had abandoned or were forced out of racing for 2025. But against the stated backdrop of a desire to promote "single-circuit" California racing by directing revenue from...

California-breds have long been a staple of the state's racing product. Since 2014, CA-breds have represented between 45% and 50% of all starters at Thoroughbred race meets. Since the consolidation of racing in the south of the state, that trend has continued. From the start of the Santa Anita winter meeting through mid-March, Cal-breds made up about 47% of all individual starters, which includes both open races and those restricted to northern trainers. But with last year's foal crop (now yearlings) currently sitting at just below 1000 amid a breeding...

Summer race-date allocations for meets at both Pleasanton and Ferndale failed to advance at Thursday's California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) meeting. The former request got voted down and the latter failed to garner enough votes to be decided either way, jeopardizing the prospect of any fairs-style racing in the state for 2025. The commissioners who voted and stakeholders who testified were split on the best path forward for California racing as a whole, widening an existential Northern-vs.-Southern rift that opened nearly two years ago when The Stronach Group (TSG) announced...

Amid the embattled economics of horse racing, more and more attention has been placed upon Computer Assisted Wagering (CAW) players. One such focus has surrounded whether these behemoths of the betting pools are contributing their fair share back to the sport. That's the case certainly in California. Last year, the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) became the first regulator of a major racing jurisdiction to really dig down into the issue during a public hearing--one that later led to a published Q&A. The scrutiny that California has received hasn't always...

The Alameda County Agricultural Fair Association voted Tuesday evening to pursue a race meet this summer, according to several sources. This is in contrast to a January vote by the California Association of Racing Fairs (CARF) to not apply for race dates in 2025. Tuesday's closed session vote launches a flurry of key details and obligations to be nailed down before a race-meet can go ahead at the track, all within a relatively short amount of time. This includes a response to the facility's long-standing regulatory wastewater and stormwater discharge...

Santa Anita opened its track Thursday morning to limited training--just joggers and gallopers for most of the morning. For the Santa Anita backstretch community, it was a slice of normality as the extent of the damage caused by the wildfires that have ripped across Los Angeles this week began to set in. "I've lived there half my life, almost. My daughter was born there. It's where she grew up. All of our memories together. I was just telling her, 'all of your medals and trophies for all the years you...