California

CHRB licensed owners with horses entered to race will be permitted to attend the races at the Los Alamitos winter meet, which begins Friday, Dec. 4. Owners will also be permitted to bring up to two adult guests. Owners wishing to attend the races should email or call Elsa Peron, Administrative Assistant of TOC ([email protected]) to secure access, and reservations can be made up until 24 hours before race day. On race days, owners must show their license when entering Los Alamitos Racecourse and park in the designated area. Owners...

In an effort to attract out-of-state horses to run at its winter/spring meet, officials at Santa Anita have announced the introduction of the 'Sunshine Bonus.' The bonus offers $3,000 of guaranteed money paid to the owners of eligible horses making their first starts at Santa Anita, excluding stakes races and debuting horses. "Along with the 10% raise in our average daily purse distribution--which now totals  $533,000--we're hopeful this new Sunshine Bonus program will help to attract horses that have not run in California over the past 12 months," said Chris...

The tide is turning on clenbuterol. Within the past month, regulators and racetracks nationwide have announced new initiatives to quell its abuse. New prohibitions are in the pipeline for the New York State Gaming Commission, the Maryland Racing Commission, Gulfstream Park, Oaklawn Park and an alliance of Mid-Atlantic racetracks. On May 1, the Canadian Pari-Mutuel Agency started banning clenbuterol 28 days out from race day at tracks country-wide. The California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) took action four months before that, enacting a years-in-the making, zero-tolerance clenbuterol clampdown that began New...

For the Del Mar Fall meet, which begins Saturday, Oct. 31, all CHRB licensed owners will be permitted on track for both morning workouts and afternoon races. Unfortunately, due to state and local guidelines, non-licensed guests are still not permitted. Owners wishing to attend the races should email or call Mary Forney, Executive Director of TOC ([email protected]) to secure access, and reservations can be made up until 24 hours before race day. To attend morning workouts, no advanced reservation is required. On race days, owners must show their license when...

Nilforushan Equisport Events (NEE) has waived the entry fee for off-the-track Thoroughbreds (OTTB) at the Temecula Valley National Fall Series. Held at Galway Downs in Temecula, California, the inaugural event will feature two back-to-back weeks in multiple rings from Nov. 11-15 and Nov. 18-22. To be eligible, OTTBs must be tattooed, and young horses must be six years old or younger. Entry fees up to eight classes will be waived. Entries may be submitted www.showgroundslive.com and www.equestrianconnect.com. View the prize list and class schedules here. In addition to the hunter...

Golden Gate Fields in Berkley, California, cancelled the Oct. 2 live racing card due to poor air quality stemming from the widespread fires in the state. "Due to unhealthy air quality unsuitable for racing, Golden Gate Fields is cancelling live racing today," according to a Tweet posted by the track. "We will be monitoring this situation on a daily basis."

Twice in its last seven runnings, the GI Awesome Again S. has produced the winner of the GI Breeders' Cup Classic, with Mucho Macho Man (Macho Uno) and Accelerate (Lookin At Lucky) completing the double in 2013 and 2018, respectively. Just a field of five faces the starter this weekend for the nine-furlong test--a 'Win and You're In' qualifier for the Classic--but the two marquee horses have legitimate claims at Keeneland in six weeks' time. Maximum Security (New Year's Day), whose topsy-turvy championship sophomore season saw him miss a start...

California racing regulators, who have long sought measures that would limit the use of the whip, announced Monday that a set of more restrictive rules will be implemented starting Oct. 1. The rules were approved June 11 at a meeting of the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) ,but could not go into effect until undergoing a regulatory review process. The new rules will bring about three major changes: (*) Riders cannot use the crop more than six times during a race, excluding showing or waving the crop or tapping the...

Eclipse Award winner Maximum Security (New Year's Day) makes his first start for trainer Bob Baffert and first since the federal indictment of former trainer Jason Servis in Saturday's rescheduled GII San Diego H. at Del Mar. The homebred was a two-time Grade I winner during his championship campaign in 2019, taking the GI Florida Derby and GI Haskell Invitational S. around his disqualification from an apparent victory in the GI Kentucky Derby. He proved his versatility and did what no other horse of his generation could at the tail...

Following the cancellation of three cards this weekend due to a lack of jockeys caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Del Mar rescheduled one of those lost days for Monday, July 27. "We're looking forward to resuming racing on Friday, July 24," said Del Mar Thoroughbred Club executive vice president for racing Tom Robbins. "Adding a race card on Monday, July 27 provides our horsemen and women with additional opportunities to run their horses." Robbins said Del Mar is looking at making up races from the two other lost days during...

On Wednesday, when Del Mar Thoroughbred Club (DMTC) announced the cancellation of this weekend's three days of racing in the aftermath of 15 asymptomatic jockeys there testing positive for COVID-19, the chief reason listed in the track's press release was "to help ensure the safety of all workers at Del Mar and our surrounding community." But in a Thursday teleconference organized by the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC) that featured Del Mar executives explaining their decision not to race, the focal point centered not so much on preventing the spread...

The road to filling the financial potholes in California's self-insured workers' compensation program has been a rocky one indeed. But is a proposed workers safety program--part of a package of possible fixes to the workers' comp problems the California industry faces, and one that experts say would be unique within the industry--something that other jurisdictions might learn from, especially as the issue remains at the top of many trainers' hit-list of occupational headaches? To find out, I spoke with John Unick, one of the racing industry's foremost workers' comp experts....