JC / Railbird - California Complication

California Complication

Oh, California. In an industry roiling coast to coast, the turmoil out west is something else. Handle is down more than $77 million at Santa Anita. Too few horses cause canceled days. Horseplayers are in revolt. “In my opinion,” bettor Andy Asaro told Art Wilson, “the CHRB leadership has failed California racing.” The matter of who’s leading is about to get more complicated: A new group called the California Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association issued a press release last night challenging the standing of the Thoroughbred Owners of California as the official group representing owners’ interests in the state.

Posted by JC in Racing on 03/29/2011 @ 7:47 am / Tagged California, CHRB, CTHA, Handle, Horseplayers, Leadership, Santa Anita, TOC / Follow @railbird on Twitter

3 Comments

What a mess.

California racing is approaching the Point of Know Return.

Posted by The_Knight_Sky on March 29, 2011 @ 10:03 am

As long as the power base in California continues to ignore it’s best customers wishes, the catastrophe will continue at the upcoming meets at Hol, Dmr, etc. Business at Santa Anita is so bad that the handle last week on Wed and Thurs dropped to a shocking $1.9M on both days. Meanwhile racing in Northern California is even worse, average field size is down to only six+ horses per race. Nothing has been done to stop the bleeding since the boycott began. The takeout remains at an all time high, field size has dropped to an all time low and the number of fatalities on the lightning fast surface continue at a record pace. These problems continued to be ignored by the ostrichs (CHRB-TOC) in charge. The “press” at the Daily Racing Form and the suits at Santa Anita are following their lead and won’t even acknowledge HANA or the boycott even exists. And the only remedy that the CHRB can come up with in the last four mmonths is to uncouple entries? That says it all !!!

Posted by Nancy Taylor on March 29, 2011 @ 7:22 pm

It’s nice to have a local like Nancy Taylor not run from the truth. Unfortunately so many Californian horse racing fans still continue to look the other way and often cannot handle the criticism. :(

Posted by The_Knight_Sky on March 30, 2011 @ 9:21 am

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