Bill Nader Q&A Part One: 'It Would be About $20 Million Coming Down'

Every passing year seems to present California with a fresh set of challenges.

The latest new leaf brings with it an entirely new racing framework with operations consolidated in the South. This comes on the back of the California Association of Racing Fairs' (CARF) decision last month not to pursue a race meet at Pleasanton during the start of 2025.

On New Year's morning, the TDN sat down with Bill Nader, executive director of the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC). In part one of this interview, Nader discusses, among other things, impacts from the current stabling agreement with Alameda County Fair which ends Mar. 25, and projected revenues from the simulcasting monies redirected from North to South.

The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.

TDN: What are the particulars of the agreement between the stabling and vanning committee and Alameda County Fair and CARF?

BN: The template that we use for the agreement would mirror what we have for Los Alamitos and for San Luis Rey Downs–a very simple two-page agreement that gets into the fee that we pay per day. It's for seven days of stabling, and six days of training. The dark day for training would be Monday.

They specify in the agreement that they may want to swap out that dark day for, in some cases, a Saturday or Sunday when they have big events. To protect everybody in that agreement, we did say that has to come with the consent of the CTT [California Thoroughbred Trainers].

The big thing was that in our proposal, the term of the agreement was from Dec. 26 into early June. And right after the CHRB meeting concluded on Dec. 19, CARF asked to sit down with me at Cal Expo–literally 15 minutes after the meeting ended–to talk about the stable agreement.

The key point, they wanted to shorten it to Mar. 25. I was surprised to hear that. Again, it wasn't mentioned during the CHRB meeting. And again, the agreement was to begin or commence on Dec. 26, so we were working on a pretty tight timeline.

The way it reads now is that [the agreement] ends on Mar. 25, and they–they being Alameda County Fair and CARF–have the exclusive right to elect to renew the agreement or extend the agreement past Mar. 25, provided there are 500 or more horses stabled at Pleasanton. So, be it their sole discretion whether they want to continue.

If it's less than that [500 horses], then I think all parties would have to come together to assess at that time. We did insert language that notice of their option to renew or extend be no later than Feb. 25, so we would be able to give everybody proper notice if they're not going to continue as an auxiliary stabling facility.

TDN: What's the cost per day and how is this being funded?

BN: Half by the tracks in Southern California–Santa Anita and Del Mar. What their split is, I'm not entirely sure at this point. But together they pay half and purses pay half. I don't know if I can give you the cost. It might be proprietary. It's higher than for Los Alamitos and nearly double San Luis Rey.

TDN: Is there any financial assistance on the table to help make up the roughly $800,000 in purse overpayments for the Golden State Racing meet just concluded?

BN: Initially, we had talked about providing a 10% increase to CARF's summer purses, which effectively would have been about $600,000. They asked that, in lieu of that, could that payment or contribution be sent now to help with their current financial crisis.

There's a separate agreement, different to the stabling and vanning agreement, that allows for that to happen in the first quarter of 2025. That would go to Alameda County Fair.

TDN: Aside from the purse overpayment, are there other operational debts that Pleasanton has accrued?

BN: I don't know. I only see the purse overpayment. I don't know about their operational costs.

TDN: If for some reason that agreement isn't continued after the Mar. 25 expiration date, what will that mean for the fairs this summer, realistically speaking?

BN: I think it would put the fairs in a very compromised position. The whole idea initially for us when we came forward with the agreement going through early June was to keep the population intact leading into the fairs. So, a stoppage Mar. 25 would be a problem for the fairs to have that continuity.

But again, they have the exclusive right to make that decision as to what they want to do with their property. Whether they choose to continue or not.

TDN: Are you expecting the Pleasanton horse inventory to maintain above that 500-horse threshold?

BN: It'll obviously be lower than what it is at the starting point, which is somewhere between 750 horses and 800. On how far it falls, I don't know. It's something we'll have to monitor and look at closely.

TDN: What are the projected revenues from the simulcasting monies redirected South? And how will that be divided up in terms of purses and track commissions?

BN: If the fairs are able to continue based on the 2023 calendar–which allows 13 weeks of racing for the fairs, and 39 weeks of redirect–based on that, it would be about $20 million coming down. That would be split about equally between the purses and track commissions. You're looking at about $10 million for each side.

From that ballpark figure, about 60% of that would go to Santa Anita, 29% to Del Mar, and 11% Los Alamitos. Both track commissions and purses.

TDN: What happens if the fairs don't go ahead this year?

BN: If that happens, then the redirect becomes bigger, and we would then have to further consider how to cater to that population over a longer period of time.

Right now, the races that are being made available in the South are only for the weeks in which there is no racing in the North. Once the fairs are in play, those races would not be available at any of the daytime tracks in the South.

When we say races in the South, we're talking daytime tracks where the incentives kick in, such as the round-trip horse transport, the travel stipends and the increased purses.

If that were to happen, we would have to come together and rethink what if anything we can do to try to keep those horses, provide opportunities for those horses in California.

TDN: Let's go with the scenario that the fairs do go ahead this summer and that $20 million heads South, what can the horsemen and women expect in impact to purses?

BN: The first part at Santa Anita, we have to recognize or acknowledge the deficit that we have in the purse over-payment and try to repay that.

TDN: How big is the deficit now?

BN: Six million. It's a substantial amount. We've got to be fiscally responsible and get back to where we need to be. But with that, if we can structure a repayment plan over a period of time, we can sit down with Santa Anita and work out a schedule that allows some upside to purses. That would be our preferred view.

With Del Mar, that's a lot easier because their purse overpayment there is just over $1 million.

The $20-million figure, we've got to make sure that number is real. We'll see that over the first quarter of 2025, see if the actuals actually match up to the forecast. And then I think we can strategically come together with the racetracks, work out something where the purses start to see some upside.

I think Del Mar is going to be in a pretty good position. Hopefully we get to where we can share some of that benefit with owners, trainers, all of our stakeholders at some point relatively early in 2025.

TDN: It's early days, but the one race carded over the weekend restricted to the Northern California horses appeared to handle noticeably less than the other open races. Did you expect that?

BN: Yes, because it was noon, second race. It handled something like $471,000.

TDN: Was that comparable to what that specific race would have handled at Golden Gate Fields?

BN: At Pleasanton, at Golden State Racing, that would have handled $60,000 at that time, meaning noon. And it was much more than it would have been at Golden Gate. At Golden Gate, in that timeslot, it might have been less than $200,000. So, it was more than double what it would have been at Golden Gate.