California Horse Racing Board

Del Mar will move up its first post time from 4p.m. to 3:30p.m for Aug. 11. The adjustment has been put in place with consultation from the Southern California jockey colony and with approval by the California Horse Racing Board. The shift in post time will provide for better viewing conditions--due to sunlight--for riders. The modification to first post on Friday, should allow the final race on the card to finish at approximately 7 p.m. (PT)

After Sunday's announcement that The Stronach Group (TSG) will close at the end of the year its flagship Northern California racetrack, Golden Gate Fields, the company at the helm of the sale has gone silent, ignoring all of TDN's requests for comment this week. To bring much-needed illumination on this seismic decision, the TDN spoke Thursday morning with Greg Ferraro, the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) chairman. Among several points raised, Ferraro shared his thoughts on the need for a fixed hub of racing in Northern California to secure the...

Sunday's news that The Stronach Group (TSG) will close its flagship Northern California racetrack, Golden Gate Fields, at the end of the year has ripped through the state racing industry like a cannon shot. It has left owners, breeders, trainers, grooms and a whole multitude of individuals whose livelihoods hinge around the sport scrambling for answers as they attempt to plot their futures in a vacuum of hard facts. Instrumental in this confusion is the glaring dearth of public information coming out of TSG. Every day this week, the TDN...

Opening weekend for Thoroughbred racing at the California State Fair's Cal Expo in Sacramento has been cancelled due to projected extreme temperatures, the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) said in a release Wednesday. Racing was scheduled Friday-Sunday, July 14-16. The CHRB follows an Inclement Weather Policy (IWP) which examines temperature, wind speed, and humidity to include recommendations and requirements pertaining to the heat index. The IWP lists the heat index in steps, beginning at 130, the point at which some horses experience discomfort. The danger to horses increases at 150,...

California horse racing again experienced a significant decline in the number of horses that died from injuries suffered during racing and training at the state's facilities during the 2022-23 fiscal year that ended June 30, the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) said in a press release on Saturday. A total of 26 died last year as a result of musculoskeletal injuries that occurred while racing or training, compared with 39 the previous year. For context, approximately 30,000 race starts and far in excess of 100,000 workouts occur each year from...

The operators of the Humboldt County Fair in Ferndale, California, are scrambling for a solution after just finding out this week that an earthquake from six months ago so badly damaged the grandstand at the half-mile racetrack that county officials now won't permit the structure to be occupied for the six-day race meet Aug. 18-20 and 25-27. Larry Swartzlander, who serves as both the executive director California Authority of Racing Fairs (CARF) and the director of racing for Ferndale, told the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) during Thursday's meeting that...

The opening months of 2019 were still fresh in California lawmakers' minds when they passed a bill that summer giving the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) emergency authority to suspend racing at a track without the hitherto required 10-day public notice period. The precipitating event, of course, was the spate of equine fatalities that had covered Santa Anita, and the racing industry in general, under a pall of public condemnation--the exact same kind of scrutiny Churchill Downs has faced these past few weeks, culminating with the announced switch of racing...

Months of contentious jockeying over whether Ferndale (Humboldt County Fair) should run its second of two weeks of racing at the end of August un-overlapped with its Northern California compatriot, Golden Gate Fields (GGF), ended in defeat for the small rural track. In a 5-1 vote during Thursday's California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) meeting, the board decided that during the week running Aug. 23 to Aug. 29, Humboldt and GGF would field simultaneous race meets. Ferndale will run the first of two scheduled weeks of racing this year, from Aug....

Following the cancellation of racing Feb. 25 and 26, the California Horse Racing Board has granted Santa Anita permission to add a card for this coming Thursday. A pair of $72,000 allowance races will highlight Thursday's program, which has a first post time of 12:30 p.m. Race six, for fillies and mares bred or sired in California, has attracted a field of seven at six furlongs on the main track. Thursday's seventh race, for older horses at a mile and one quarter over the Camino Real Turf Course, attracted a...

The Golden State is the first jurisdiction in the country to sign a voluntary agreement with the Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit (HIWU) to continue performing a host of vital roles when the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act's (HISA) drug control program goes into effect Mar. 27, according to a statement Friday by the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB). In another first among the nation's racing jurisdictions, the CHRB also agrees to pay HISA's 2023 fee assessment. The total figure for the state is more than $6.7 million. However, after...

In an attempt to help shield California's backstretch veterinary community from possible further punitive actions by the Veterinary Medical Board (VMB), the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) has issued proposed emergency regulations designed to clear up discord between these two agencies about the correct use of compounded medications across California's backstretches. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defines the compounding of drugs as "the process of combining, mixing, or altering ingredients to create a medication tailored to the needs of an individual patient. Compounding includes the combining of two or...

A dispute that began in October over whether Ferndale (Humboldt County Fair) will once again have to run its second of two weeks of racing at the end of August against overlapping competition from the commercial licensee Golden Gate Fields (GGF) will now likely extend into March. There are multiple reasons for the impasse. But the two main sticking points that emerged at Thursday's California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) were: 1) The two tracks, plus stakeholders from the California Authority of Racing Fairs (CARF), Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC), and...