CHRB Food Fight? California's Top Horse Racing Regulators Clash After Humboldt County Fair Dates Request Is Denied

Yahoo

16-05-2025

Guy Fieri tried, but even the Food Network star of 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives' couldn't save horse racing in his small northern California hometown of Ferndale, the site of the Humboldt County Fair since 1896. Racing has been a mainstay of the fair most of the years since, but that is coming to an end in 2025.
On Thursday, for the second month in a row, the California Horse Racing Board voted against approval of the Humboldt County Fair's dates request for three consecutive weekends of racing between Aug. 13 and Sept. 1. The regularly scheduled meeting was held in Sacramento at the California Exposition and State Fair Grandstand.
Technically, the April vote, 3-2 against granting the dates, meant no action was taken by the board because a majority of four of the seven CHRB seats is required. One commissioner, Damascus Castellanos was absent from the April meeting, and one board seat was open because of the resignation of John Carvelli in February.
Thursday's vote was 4-3 against the request, with chairman Dr. Gregory Ferraro and commissioners Dennis Alfieri, Thomas Hudnut and Castellanos voting no. Voting in favor of the Humboldt County Fair dates request was vice chairman Oscar Gonzales, along with commissioners Brenda Davis and Peter Stern. Stern was recently appointed to fill the vacant CHRB seat by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The vote came after presentations by representatives of the Humboldt County Fair, recognition that a number of local, state and Congressional politicians had written to the CHRB in support of approving a race meet in Ferndale, and pleadings from owners, breeders, trainers and track employees who said a meet would be beneficial to California racing and breeding. One speaker read a letter from the well-known television star Fieri, who annually attends the fair and whose food career was launched as a teenager with a pretzel cart on the fair grounds.
In pleading for approval of the dates, Fieri wrote in his letter, 'To put it very bluntly, taking this meet away from Ferndale would be a bullet to the heart of the fair community. There's no other way to say it.'
Speaking against the request for dates was Bill Nader, president and CEO of Thoroughbred Owners of California. Nader outlined the disastrous results of the short-lived Golden State Racing meet at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton last year, which the CHRB approved over TOC protests. That meet, Nader said, required a bailout from Southern California interests and caused severe financial losses to the California Authority of Racing Fairs, which had previously operated fair meets throughout Northern California. CARF ended up selling equipment needed to operate a race meet to a track in Wyoming and has refocused its business on helping Northern California fairs operate their off-track betting facilities.
"We need to be very careful with how we govern and how we go forward to protect and preserve California racing," Nader told the CHRB commissioners.
The denial of the Humboldt County Fair dates mean there will be no Northern California racing this summer. Since Belinda Stronach, owner of Golden Gate Fields, closed the Bay Area track in June 2024, the only racing was the short-lived Golden State meet from mid-October through mid-December. The CHRB last month voted 4-1 against a request by newly formed Bernal Park Racing to conduct a June 10-July 6 meet at the Alameda County Fair. Bernal Park Racing, an entity started by owner-breeders George Schmitt and John Harris, was set to operate the Ferndale meet if the dates had been approved. Schmitt spoke at the meeting and said he and Harris deposited $1.5 million to help fund the Humboldt County Fair meet and had spent over $100,000 so far on fees and equipment.No other fairs have applied for 2025 dates.
After the dates request was voted down, vice chairman Gonzales, who has clashed with chairman Ferraro in past meetings and was particularly critical of him over the Ferndale vote in April, called it a 'serious, serious, serious mistake that this board made." Gonzales asked the CHRB's executive director, Scott Chaney, the logistics of calling for a follow-up meeting to address the request again.
"Commissioner Gonzales, how many votes do you want to have on this?' Ferraro asked. 'You've lost twice. Do you not accept the vote?'
'I don't. I don't, Mr. Chairman,' Gonzales responded.
'Well, that's your problem. That's not the problem of the board,' Ferraro answered back. As chairman, Ferraro can veto calls for a special or emergency meeting and said he would do so if Gonzales tried to have one scheduled.
Later, during a public comment period, Gonzales irked Ferraro again, complaining about a back-and-forth between Ferraro and a member of the public.
'Are you being particularly rude today," Ferraro asked, "or do you just have a problem?'
The meeting was then adjourned. If Fieri was there to serve lunch, a food fight might have broken out between California's top two horse racing regulators.