The Stronach Group

1/ST, the ownership group behind Gulfstream Park and Santa Anita Park, is partnering with auction company Fasig-Tipton, who will be their title sponsor for the new Fasig-Tipton 3-Year-Old Filly Series, the company said in a press release on Wednesday. The collaboration will spotlight the GII Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Park Oaks and the GII Fasig-Tipton Santa Anita Oaks, which are the final preps at both tracks for the GI Kentucky Oaks. The new series will debut Jan. 1 at Gulfstream Park with the Fasig-Tipton Cash Run Stakes and will conclude with the...

On Monday, the California Authority of Racing Fairs (CARF) board voted unanimously (with one abstention) to rescind a proposed Golden State Racing meet spanning the first half of next year, essentially leaving Northern California without Thoroughbred racing in 2025 outside of the annual suite of summer fair meets. This means that the Northern Californian horsemen and women have had little time to respond and adapt to a proposal by the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC) and 1/ST Racing and Gaming--a business entity under The Stronach Group (TSG) umbrella--to maintain a...

Tracy Reid needed a job. It was 2011 and she was back in her hometown of Miami after rupturing her Achilles tendon for the second time. Trying to put the pain and the disappointment behind her, it was tenacity driving her hope that she could return to the only career she ever had--playing the game of basketball. In the interim though, bills were stacking up, her savings account was moving towards the point of exhaustion and the reality of everyday life was coming to collect. Reid happened to see a...

The California Authority of Racing Fairs (CARF) board voted unanimously Monday to rescind a proposed Golden State Racing meet spanning the first half of next year, plunging an already tenuous situation for the horsemen and women in the North of the state into a world of even greater uncertainty. The decision was met with dismay and concern during Monday's online CARF meeting, with several stakeholders in Northern California voicing fears that the move would also jeopardize the future of the California fair meets. "I am in concert with Aidan Butler...

On Tuesday--just two weeks after two horses died on Laurel Park's dirt surface and not even 24 hours after Laurel announced its track superintendent would be retiring immediately--the head of the new non-profit organization that will run both Laurel and Pimlico Race Course starting in 2025 told the Maryland Racing Commission that an immediate search is underway for an expert to quell the main-track woes that have intermittently plagued Laurel the past two decades. "We will obviously do a search nationwide for a winter-weather superintendent. It's a very important position....

A license transfer that is needed for a new, non-profit group to take over the running of Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course starting on the first of the year got pushed off the agenda at Tuesday's Maryland Racing Commission meeting because of concerns over the lack of documentation for how the incoming entity will meet an estimated $6-million budget shortfall for 2025. But executives from the Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority (MTROA), which is facilitating the state-approved change of control of the two tracks from 1/ST Racing (The Stronach...

Although the future of the Golden State Racing (GSR) meet at Pleasanton wasn't officially on Thursday's California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) agenda, the reverberations of dismal betting business through the first five weeks of operation at Northern California's new anchor track became the impassioned focal point of the Nov. 21 meeting. Citing concerns that the autumn Pleasanton meet isn't living up to the hope that the former fairs-season-only track might help fill the NorCal void that occurred when The Stronach Group (TSG) closed Golden Gate Fields back in June, Aidan...

As it has in virtually every conversation that involves horse racing over the past year, safety played a central role at the 72nd annual Jockey Club Round Table Conference in Saratoga Springs, New York Thursday.   California: Safety and Collaboration In two presentations focusing on California, Gary Fenton, Chairman of the Thoroughbred Owners of California and a managing partner of Little Red Feather Racing, spoke from a TVG set in the Del Mar paddock about the importance of California racing to the overall racing ecosystem, while Dionne Benson, the Chief...

Lugano Diamonds Split Rock Jumping Tour, an international show jumping tour, will make a stop at Santa Anita this November, with the Los Angeles National to be held Nov. 13-17,  followed by the inaugural CSI5*-W featuring the $400,000 Longines  FEI Jumping World Cup™ Los Angeles CSI5*-W qualifying event presented by Lugano Diamonds Santa Anita CS to be held Nov. 20-24. In addition to world-class show jumping, the Santa Anita CSI5*-W event week from Nov. 20-24, 1/ST will offer elevated hospitality and entertainment experiences at the Arcadia racetrack. "There is a...

It was déjà vu all over again at June's California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) meeting. Three months after a contentious meeting that saw board members vote unanimously to give race dates to Pleasanton Racetrack for a Thoroughbred meet this fall (in opposition to the wishes of Southern California track operators), the CHRB wrestled with another weighty conundrum: How to fund horse racing in California for the next fiscal year. Ultimately, the board approved what was termed a "compromise" funding model that will see each racing association cover the "direct costs"...

You have to root for the people who strive so hard to make a go of racing in Northern California after Golden Gate Fields shut its doors for good June 9. Racing has a rich history in Northern California and there are hundreds of people, from hotwalkers to grooms to trainers to breeders, and everybody in between, who depend on the sport to put food on the table. They deserve better than the uncertainty that has left most everyone worrying about their futures after The Stronach Group announced it was...

Let the record show that the very first horse to win a race at Golden Gate Fields was a mare named Skookumchuck, who won the inaugural race on Feb.1, 1941 before a crowd of 30,000. The last horse to win a race there was Adelie (Ire) (Ardad {Ire}), who got to the wire first in Sunday's eighth, the last race ever at a track. In between, there was a lot of history, a lot of memories...Citation, Russell Baze, Lost in the Fog, Noor. That's history that cannot be erased, but...