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Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
CHRB Food Fight? California's Top Horse Racing Regulators Clash After Humboldt County Fair Dates Request Is Denied
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 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.
New York Post
01-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Post
Notorious horse trainer Bob Baffert's rise, fall and return to the Kentucky Derby is ‘deliberate confusing of the symptom with the disease'
Bob Baffert has had at least 75 racehorses — including two just last month — die under his care since 2000, according to the California Horse Racing Board and Daily Racing Form data, but a new book asserts that the legendary 72-year-old trainer has been unfairly maligned. '[The] public pillorying [of him] for the past three years has felt more like a scapegoat for racing's biggest problems than a solution,' writes Katie Bo Lillis in 'Death of a Racehorse: An American Story' (Simon & Schuster, out Tuesday). Framing him as the sole villain for the rampant drug use in horse racing feels like 'a deliberate confusing of the symptom with the disease.' All eyes will be on Baffert this Saturday when he returns to the Kentucky Derby and Churchill Downs after a three-year suspension by Churchill Downs Inc. for using a banned substance on a winning horse. 5 Bob Baffert is returning to the Kentucky Derby and Churchill Downs after a three-year suspension by Churchill Downs Inc. for using a banned substance with Medina Spirit (pictured). Pat McDonogh / Courier Journal via Imagn Content Services, LLC He has two horses — Citizen Bull and Rodriquez — competing in the Derby, the latter of which the Washington Post picked as the 'clear choice to win.' The Arcadia, California-based Baffert trained the famed race's 2021 winner, Medina Spirit. But afterwards, the colt tested positive for betamethasone, an anti-inflammatory drug that's commonly used in the equestrian world but can't be in a horse's bloodstream on race day. On December 6, 2021, Medina Spirit collapsed during a training run at Santa Anita in California, dying of a heart attack. Two months after his death, Baffert was officially stripped of his Derby victory. Churchill Downs also suspended Baffert for two years, and he responded with a lawsuit, insisting that he'd done nothing wrong. A federal court in Kentucky dismissed the case in 2023, and Baffert's suspension was extended for a third year because of his insistence on 'peddl[ing] a false narrative,' according to Churchill Downs. It finally ended last summer, with Baffert taking full responsibility for Medina Spirit's positive test. Though rumors had circulated for decades that 'the most dominant trainer in the country was giving his horses a little chemical help,' Lillis writes, it was a huge reckoning for the sport. Baffert has had a record-tying six Kentucky Derby wins (not counting Medina) and twice clinched the Triple Crown — with American Pharoah in 2015 and Justify in 2018. 5 Baffert has had 75 horses, including Medina Spirit, die since 2000. REUTERS 'Before Baffert, no one had won the Triple Crown since 1978,' writes Lillis. Focusing solely on the tragic death of Medina Spirit is shortsighted, she asserts. '[It] wasn't the first time one of Bob Baffert's horses had dropped dead of a heart attack,' writes Lillis. 'It wasn't even the second, or the third. A decade before, seven horses in Baffert's stable had died abruptly of suspected cardiac-related causes in less than two years — nine times the rate of other trainers stabled in the state of California.' He is also hardly the only questionable trainer within the industry. In recent years, more than two dozen trainers and veterinarians have been indicted for 'juicing' horses with performance-enhancing drugs, like 'blood building drugs, which… can lead to cardiac issues or death,' according to the Department of Justice. One industry veteran told The Post that 60% of Thoroughbreds are drugged by trainers. 5 A new book asserts that Baffert isn't so much a disease as a symptom of problems in horse racing. In 2020, just a year before the scandal that briefly cost Baffert his career, 'the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing was in a moment of profound peril,' writes Lillis. Drug use was widespread, with horses receiving everything 'from sedatives to joint injections to a deeply controversial drug designed to prevent spontaneous hemorrhaging of the lungs during intense exercise, sometimes in untested combinations with unknown outcomes.' In 2024 alone, there were 161 race-related horse deaths, with 15 of them occurring on Kentucky tracks and six at Churchill Downs, according to the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority. When he was finally exposed for Medina Spirit, Baffert pushed back. He gave media interviews and press conferences insisting that his horses — particularly Medina Spirit, despite the toxicology report—had never received betamethasone. 'He was widely mocked for rambling, speculative explanations that at times bordered on the absurd,' writes Lillis. 5 Baffert has won the Kentucky Derby a record six times. Getty Images He made a brief comeback in 2023, winning the Preakness Stakes for a record-setting eighth time with a horse named National Treasure. But the victory was overshadowed by the death of another one of his horses, Havnameltdown, who'd been injected with betamethasone. 'It was an unsettling reminder that Baffert, like so many trainers who had run afoul of racing's petty regulations before, had simply gone back to business as usual,' writes Lillis. According to her, at the Preakness, Baffert had an encounter with Shaun Richards, the new director for the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit, the anti-doping authority. Baffert told the author that Richards warned him, 'I'm gonna be watching you guys, and you better not mess up because I know how to find you.' (According to Richards, Baffert's version of events 'was fabricated, other than I said 'hello.'') 5 Baffert won the Triple Crown with Justify in 2018. Getty Images Lillis is hopeful that the drug scandals of horse-racing, personified by Baffert, may be behind them. 'Some horsemen have quietly told me that they have seen attitudes toward the animal begin to shift,' she writes. 'Whether that change will happen fast enough to catch up to the outside world's expectations remains to be seen.'
Los Angeles Times
30-03-2025
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
Kentucky Derby picture remains unclear heading into major races this weekend
Hallandale Beach, Fl. — As racing heads to its final big week of qualifying for the Kentucky Derby, it's becoming clear that there is no overwhelming favorite to win the most famous horse race in the world. Saturday was supposed to help define the field but instead saw the favorites in the Florida Derby and Arkansas Derby lose. For most of the horses, it was their first time going 1 1/8 miles, a furlong short of the 1 ¼-mile Kentucky Derby. Of course, winning your last race before the Kentucky Derby is no guarantee for success as you have to go back to 2017 when Always Dreaming won both the Florida Derby and Kentucky Derby. That is if you discount Justify's performance in the Santa Anita Derby before winning the Triple Crown in 2018. Justify crossed the finish line first in the Santa Anita Derby but was disqualified six years later when it was determined that the California Horse Racing Board mishandled a contamination positive on the colt. Justify, along with six other horses among five trainers, tested positive for jimson weed, which it was believed the horses ingested in their feed. No trainer was sanctioned. This week, the Kentucky Derby field of 20 will mostly be filled barring injuries and one final small-points race at Keeneland on April 12. U.S. horses are competing for 17 of the spots with the remaining spots given to horses from Japan, Europe and the Middle East. If those spots are not filled, U.S. winning horses would complete the field. Highlighting this weekend will be the Santa Anita Derby, in which futures pool leader Journalism will try for his fourth win in a row. The Southern California-based 3-year-old is trained by Michael McCarthy and ridden by Umberto Rispoli. Other races, also worth 100 points to the winner (if the field is six or more) will be the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland and the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. The first and second-place finishers in those races will most likely have enough points to qualify for the first Saturday in May. Tappan Street, running only his third race, won the Florida Derby on Saturday by 1 ¼ lengths beating favorite Sovereignty followed by Neoequos and Madaket Road. 'Anytime you have a young horse like this and you give them eight weeks between starts, it's always a concern,' said winning trainer Brad Cox. 'But this is a very smart horse. He's intelligent. I thought he would break very, very well today the way he was training, and he did. That put him in the race and put him in a great position.' Cox said if the horse comes out of the race fit, he would ship him to Churchill Downs on Monday or Tuesday. Madaket Road was the lone California-based horse in the race, running for Baffert. He came out of the gate strong, was carried wide on the first turn, led down the backstretch and gave up the lead in the stretch. 'Right now, I just felt like it was a bit far,' said jockey Mike Smith. 'It wasn't like I went overly fast. I thought we got away really well and put him in a great place to kick on. Let me tell you something, those two or three horses in front of us are serious because I was running. I could hear him and I could feel him, and it was getting to him a little bit, but it's not because of a lack of trying. He still kicked.' Madaket Road has 46 Derby qualifying points, which has him 16th in the rankings. However, it's unclear what his next race will be and if he really has a problem with distance, then he may be pointed to the 1 3/16-mile Preakness or an even shorter race. In Arkansas, Baffert had the 4-5 favorite in Cornucopian, but the colt got caught in a vicious speed duel that left he and Speed King out of gas in the stretch. The first quarter-mile went in 22.46 seconds and the half mile in 45.21 seconds. It was then easy for Sandman to win by 2 ½ lengths followed by Publisher, Coal Battle and Cornucopian. 'I couldn't believe [the early fractions],' said winning trainer Mark Casse. 'I said: 'Well, they'll have to be superstars to keep going.' The farther they went, the more confident I was. The faster they went, the more I smiled.' Sandman's stretch run was a bit erratic, lugging out as her approached the finish line. 'I think that [lugging out] just shows how good he is,' Casse said. 'He wasn't focusing and he was still able to draw away. As [jockey] Jose [Ortiz] said, he wants to get into a rhythm. And if you can get him into that rhythm, he'll just go. Jose said he didn't take a deep breath when he pulled up.' John Velazquez, Cornucopian's jockey, was succinct in his analysis. 'Nothing else you can say,' Velazquez said. 'We went fast.' Cornucopian has only 15 qualifying points, putting him in 36th place and well out of Derby contention. As a general rule, 50 points pretty much guarantees you a start in the Derby, with 40 points being near the edge of qualification.
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Will California ever approve Historical Horse Racing machines to help save the sport?
California horse racing, now in danger of shutting down, could have put itself on solid footing more than a decade ago when it explored the idea of adding electronic machines that allow gamblers to bet on replays of horse races at its tracks. The facilities, individually, were in favor of installing the devices known as Historical Horse Racing (HHR) machines. The Native American tribes, which control non-pari-mutuel gambling in the state, were willing to become partners. All that was needed was consensus within the California horse racing industry. Louis Cella, Chuck Winner and Scott Daruty went to Sacramento to solve the problem. 'We … lobbied them and we were very close to coming to a resolution on HHR in California,' said Cella, whose family owns Oaklawn Park in Arkansas and were the first to install HHR-like machines. 'But then you had the conflicting views from the Northern tracks and the Southern tracks and the management in between couldn't agree on anything. It became moot. It could not be solved. 'It got so far that the Native American tribes were saying, 'If you can solve that problem, we'll play that game and let you go.' We were going to save racing in California. But then special interests took over. … I don't see how that's getting resolved.' Cella could not remember the exact year the meeting took place. Winner, who was on the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) between 2012-2019, died on March 24, 2022. Santa Anita owner The Stronach Group (TSG), for which Daruty works as a senior executive, denied a Times request for an interview. Outside the room was Steve Keech, who worked for TSG at the time and now works in technology at the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA). 'When they came outside, they said, 'So and so wants another couple points [of the profits],'" Keech recalled. "… The game doesn't work where it's an infinite amount of money. You keep cutting it up and just about everybody wanted that one more point. Read more: Inside California horse racing's complex problems that could hurt the sport nationwide '[Northern California and Southern California] couldn't agree on anything, [especially with separate simulcasting regulatory groups running the north and south]. It was all, who wants this piece or that piece [of the money]? [The tribes] were willing to play because they were going to get a piece.' The Northern versus Southern issue has been resolved, with Northern tracks closing. But the question remains whether California can approve the use of HHR machines to help save the sport. Most in the industry agree that if California doesn't get HHR or some other form of supplemental income to boost purses, racing in the state will not continue much longer. Santa Anita is having a good start to its current meeting with mutuel handle up. The track says attendance is up, but Santa Anita is notorious for its inaccuracy in this area. 'CHRB long ago stopped providing attendance numbers in the annual report that were provided by racetracks because those numbers were and still are highly inflated for publicity purposes,' the CHRB stated in a September email to commissioners and executives. But the Santa Anita mutuel handle appears to be up, benefiting from simulcast money that was originally supposed to go to Northern California. The track just announced an increase in purses of about 20%. California racing has some of the lowest purses in the country for tracks the size of Santa Anita and Del Mar. Horsemen find racing elsewhere so much easier and more cost efficient. Kentucky has heavily subsidized racing purses because of its use of Historical Horse Racing machines. New York has casino gambling backing its purses. Oaklawn remains one of the most successful tracks in the country and it is tied to a casino. Survival rests on getting owners to bring their horses to California to run for competitive purses. Higher purses attract more horses, which means larger fields, which leads to more money being bet, all of which brings more money for everyone in racing. The maiden races at Churchill Downs in Kentucky pay twice what they do in California. While many East and Midwest tracks run stakes approaching $1 million, California stakes are usually run at the bare authorized minimum of $300,000 for Grade 1s, $200,000 for Grade 2s and $100,000 for Grade 3s. In 1986, the Santa Anita Handicap was a $1-million race. This year it is being run for $300,000. Read more: Former Santa Anita employee's lawsuit alleges lying amid horse deaths The urgency is well known within the community. There are four point people tasked with finding that solution — Aidan Butler, chief executive of 1/ST Racing, which owns Santa Anita; Josh Rubinstein, chief operating officer at Del Mar; Bill Nader, chief executive of the Thoroughbred Owners of California; and Keith Brackpool, a former CHRB chairman and TSG executive, who is working as a consultant. While there are occasional discussions among the leaders, there are no set meetings or information shared with the public. Butler, Nader and Rubinstein, who did return messages from The Times, all declined to speak about specifics or their efforts. TSG denied a Times request to talk to Brackpool and he did not respond to a phone message. The principals involved in the HHR effort have all been asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, people with knowledge of the talks told The Times. The Tribal Nation's control of California gaming is well established both legally and culturally. In 1988, Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and ceded all authority over gaming on tribal lands to the states in which they reside. California, in turn, passed laws that allowed only five types of gambling. There are Indian casinos, which are allowed to have Las Vegas-style table games (except roulette) and slot machines; card clubs; charitable gambling (church bingo); the state lottery; and pari-mutuel wagering connected to horse racing. In 2000, voters passed Proposition 1A, which exclusively gave the right to use slot machines to the tribes. In 2004, a state ballot initiative that would have allowed the expansion of non-tribal gambling was defeated 84% to 16%. Read more: Attempt to revive horse racing in Northern California ends, affecting the sport around the state So, it seems that the law is on the side of the tribes. But racing interests say that HHR is not a game of chance but skill and is connected to a pari-mutuel hub. The problem is that everything about HHR screams slot machine. Multiple people with knowledge of the situation told The Times there has been no formal contact between the tribes and racing interests to find common ground. 'We are very concerned about possible efforts to bring Historical Horse Racing gaming machines to California,' said James Siva, chairman of the California Nations Indian Gaming Assn. 'These machines would seem to violate tribal exclusivity as they operate as de facto slot machines. While these machines have features that are cosmetically different from slot machines on both the back and front ends, for players the difference is imperceptible. 'In the past few years, the attorneys general in the states of Oregon and Arizona quelled efforts in their respective states to install these machines at non-tribal gaming facilities. We will be discussing the issue and looking at options as this matter continues to evolve.' Some on the edges of finding an HHR machines solution not authorized to discuss it publicly say there are between four and six plans. Conversations with more than a dozen people with knowledge of the process painted a picture of the problems faced and decisions being made in regard to HHR. Most people interviewed did not want their name used for fear of upsetting the strategy. Here is a sampling of courses of action that have been or will be considered: — Negotiate with the tribes for a split in income from the machines. The machines would be located on track and be open seven days a week. This is the most seamless solution to the HHR dilemma. But it can't happen without conversations with the tribes. Read more: Golden Gate Fields comes to a close as California racing struggles to exist — Roll out a few machines, maybe 40, after approval of the CHRB but with no agreement with the tribes. The thinking was this few number of machines would not be threatening to the tribes. It was then determined that the tribes are likely to sue the track regardless of the number of machines involved. So, this plan was placed on the back burner. — Roll out a lot of machines, perhaps as many as 1,000, get ready for litigation and make a fair amount of money while things work their way through the courts. — Hold tight for now but seek redress from the Legislature. In short, change the law so that HHR would be allowed on racetrack grounds. This now becomes a battle of the lobbyists and the tribes don't lose often. It could be a negotiating point. HHR is not believed to be a serious concern of the tribes as the amount of money, in the grand scheme, is not that much. The tribes have opposed any form of gambling it doesn't control for fear of the 'slippery slope' of adding more gambling it does not control. But the tribes may be willing to allow HHR if they can gain concessions in the Legislature on internet gambling, which remains their No. 1 concern. — The tracks negotiate with just a single tribe, not the consortium of all of them, to allow HHR on their property. A representative of the tribes told The Times that no individual tribal entity could negotiate on their own. But … there are 109 tribes in California and 76 California Indian gaming casinos (and five mini-casinos). Total revenue is $9 billion. This could set up infighting in the tribal community that could strengthen the tracks' position, only because there is not an enormous amount of money at stake. Again, if the tribes were to get something in return, such as concessions on internet wagering, the equation could change. This may eventually end up in the wheelhouse of Rob Bonta, the California attorney general. His office, when contacted by The Times, referred the question about HHR to the CHRB, which is in favor of HHR. But it is unclear whether the attorney general endorses that position or simply was declining to discuss it publicly. The specter of HHR in California has been there for a while. But it exploded when CHRB chairman Greg Ferraro told the New York Times in November that HHR machines would be in California tracks shortly and that the CHRB would approve it. 'I guess the cat is out of the bag,' one CHRB commissioner told The Times. But Ferraro's comments seemed premature as months passed without HHR machines appearing on the CHRB agenda. Beneath all the politics, how quickly tracks can use HHR machines likely hinges on whether they are considered games of chance or skill. If it is skill, and proved to be a pari-mutuel product, then the path to success is much easier. If it is shown to be a game of chance, such as slot machines, then it would be nearly impossible to use the machines without tribal cooperation. The Times played the 1/ST Racing HHR machine, powered by PariMAX, and the Churchill Downs product under the name Exacta. Representatives of both products were willing to exhibit their products at the Global Symposium in Tucson, but declined to publicly discuss the machines. There is little doubt that the machines are designed to provide fast action with a payout that is clearly better than horse racing. Takeout on horse racing gambling — the fee immediately withheld from any winnings — is usually in the mid to late teens but can exceed 20%. The average take on a slot machine is 82% to 95%. People familiar with California horsemen's sentiments told The Times that they probably would accept an 8% takeout, with at least one point (of 100) going to breeding, at least two or three for purses and the remainder split between the track and the tribes. Kentucky has about an 8% takeout, which is far superior to what bettors get if playing the horses. Playing the HHR machines is identical to the experience of playing a slot machine. You can play as fast or slow as you want and your eyes are transfixed on the middle of the machine where you see the traditional symbols of cherries, dollar signs and jackpot payoffs. You can hit another button and get minimal handicapping information that, essentially, is worthless to someone who really wants to play horse racing. If you pull the handle, or push the button, the wheels spin until the result of traditional slot symbols is final. Then at the top of the machine, you get about the last second or two of the race. No more. There is an option to view the full race, but few use it. 'We just discovered that people don't want to watch the race, they just want the action and that the race slows things down,' said a vendor representative who said they could not be quoted on any issue. Read more: Raging Torrent beats Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan on opening day at Santa Anita HISA's Keech helped develop the first HHR machines and his name is on the original patent. 'When you go to play a slot machine, it's like going to a movie, there's a particular experience you're looking for,' Keech said. 'As a player, what you want in the experience is not watching horse racing. Sorry, it's not. But it's a way for horse racing to monetize historic content. 'It's OK for movies to do that, it's OK for singers to do that, it's OK for all these other industries to do that, so why is everyone wigged out that horse racing wants to monetize its content. … I have some disagreements with some of the designs of things, but no, it is 100% not a slot machine. If you look at a slot math model and then look at an HHR math model, they aren't even close.' If you wondered how HHR can crank out as many races as it can and still build a mutuel pool, it's because of a model that you aren't just playing people in the same room as you, but all over the country. Santa Anita believes it has the infrastructure ready to go. In late November, the track rolled out the machines and plugged them in on the third-floor grandstand. At the time, Butler said the machines were at the track since at least 2019 when he joined the company. HHR experts looked at pictures of the machines and verified they are very old models. Butler was angry that word of the machines had leaked and when The Times inquired about them, he ordered the machines to be shut off and put back in storage. If Santa Anita were to add machines, they would probably be newer models produced by the company that owns the track. Unless an agreement can be reached with the tribes, the use of HHR machines in California is likely to be decided by the courts. And perhaps the question of whether HHR is a game of skill or chance will favor horse racing, despite some obvious challenges. 'You know the old saying, 'If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck?'" said Marc Guilfoil, HISA's director of state racing commission relations. "Well, we call those swimming chickens.' Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
10-02-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
Will California ever approve Historical Horse Racing machines to help save the sport?
California horse racing, now in danger of shutting down, could have put itself on solid footing more than a decade ago when it explored the idea of adding electronic machines that allow gamblers to bet on replays of horse races at its tracks. The facilities, individually, were in favor of installing the devices known as Historical Horse Racing (HHR) machines. The Native American tribes, which control non-pari-mutuel gambling in the state, were willing to become partners. All that was needed was consensus within the California horse racing industry. Louis Cella, Chuck Winner and Scott Daruty went to Sacramento to solve the problem. 'We … lobbied them and we were very close to coming to a resolution on HHR in California,' said Cella, whose family owns Oaklawn Park in Arkansas and were the first to install HHR-like machines. 'But then you had the conflicting views from the Northern tracks and the Southern tracks and the management in between couldn't agree on anything. It became moot. It could not be solved. 'It got so far that the Native American tribes were saying, 'If you can solve that problem, we'll play that game and let you go.' We were going to save racing in California. But then special interests took over. … I don't see how that's getting resolved.' Cella could not remember the exact year the meeting took place. Winner, who was on the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) between 2012-2019, died on March 24, 2022. Santa Anita owner The Stronach Group (TSG), for which Daruty works as a senior executive, denied a Times request for an interview. Outside the room was Steve Keech, who worked for TSG at the time and now works in technology at the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA). 'When they came outside, they said, 'So and so wants another couple points [of the profits],'' Keech recalled. '… The game doesn't work where it's an infinite amount of money. You keep cutting it up and just about everybody wanted that one more point. '[Northern California and Southern California] couldn't agree on anything, [especially with separate simulcasting regulatory groups running the north and south]. It was all, who wants this piece or that piece [of the money]? [The tribes] were willing to play because they were going to get a piece.' The Northern versus Southern issue has been resolved, with Northern tracks closing. But the question remains whether California can approve the use of HHR machines to help save the sport. Most in the industry agree that if California doesn't get HHR or some other form of supplemental income to boost purses, racing in the state will not continue much longer. Santa Anita is having a good start to its current meeting with mutuel handle up. The track says attendance is up, but Santa Anita is notorious for its inaccuracy in this area. 'CHRB long ago stopped providing attendance numbers in the annual report that were provided by racetracks because those numbers were and still are highly inflated for publicity purposes,' the CHRB stated in a September email to commissioners and executives. But the Santa Anita mutuel handle appears to be up, benefiting from simulcast money that was originally supposed to go to Northern California. The track just announced an increase in purses of about 20%. California racing has some of the lowest purses in the country for tracks the size of Santa Anita and Del Mar. Horsemen find racing elsewhere so much easier and more cost efficient. Kentucky has heavily subsidized racing purses because of its use of Historical Horse Racing machines. New York has casino gambling backing its purses. Oaklawn remains one of the most successful tracks in the country and it is tied to a casino. Survival rests on getting owners to bring their horses to California to run for competitive purses. Higher purses attract more horses, which means larger fields, which leads to more money being bet, all of which brings more money for everyone in racing. The maiden races at Churchill Downs in Kentucky pay twice what they do in California. While many East and Midwest tracks run stakes approaching $1 million, California stakes are usually run at the bare authorized minimum of $300,000 for Grade 1s, $200,000 for Grade 2s and $100,000 for Grade 3s. In 1986, the Santa Anita Handicap was a $1-million race. This year it is being run for $300,000. The urgency is well known within the community. There are four point people tasked with finding that solution — Aidan Butler, chief executive of 1/ST Racing, which owns Santa Anita; Josh Rubinstein, chief operating officer at Del Mar; Bill Nader, chief executive of the Thoroughbred Owners of California; and Keith Brackpool, a former CHRB chairman and TSG executive, who is working as a consultant. While there are occasional discussions among the leaders, there are no set meetings or information shared with the public. Butler, Nader and Rubinstein, who did return messages from The Times, all declined to speak about specifics or their efforts. TSG denied a Times request to talk to Brackpool and he did not respond to a phone message. The principals involved in the HHR effort have all been asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, people with knowledge of the talks told The Times. The Tribal Nation's control of California gaming is well established both legally and culturally. In 1988, Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and ceded all authority over gaming on tribal lands to the states in which they reside. California, in turn, passed laws that allowed only five types of gambling. There are Indian casinos, which are allowed to have Las Vegas-style table games (except roulette) and slot machines; card clubs; charitable gambling (church bingo); the state lottery; and pari-mutuel wagering connected to horse racing. In 2000, voters passed Proposition 1A, which exclusively gave the right to use slot machines to the tribes. In 2004, a state ballot initiative that would have allowed the expansion of non-tribal gambling was defeated 84% to 16%. So, it seems that the law is on the side of the tribes. But racing interests say that HHR is not a game of chance but skill and is connected to a pari-mutuel hub. The problem is that everything about HHR screams slot machine. Multiple people with knowledge of the situation told The Times there has been no formal contact between the tribes and racing interests to find common ground. 'We are very concerned about possible efforts to bring Historical Horse Racing gaming machines to California,' said James Siva, chairman of the California Nations Indian Gaming Assn. 'These machines would seem to violate tribal exclusivity as they operate as de facto slot machines. While these machines have features that are cosmetically different from slot machines on both the back and front ends, for players the difference is imperceptible. 'In the past few years, the attorneys general in the states of Oregon and Arizona quelled efforts in their respective states to install these machines at non-tribal gaming facilities. We will be discussing the issue and looking at options as this matter continues to evolve.' Some on the edges of finding an HHR machines solution not authorized to discuss it publicly say there are between four and six plans. Conversations with more than a dozen people with knowledge of the process painted a picture of the problems faced and decisions being made in regard to HHR. Most people interviewed did not want their name used for fear of upsetting the strategy. Here is a sampling of courses of action that have been or will be considered: — Negotiate with the tribes for a split in income from the machines. The machines would be located on track and be open seven days a week. This is the most seamless solution to the HHR dilemma. But it can't happen without conversations with the tribes. — Roll out a few machines, maybe 40, after approval of the CHRB but with no agreement with the tribes. The thinking was this few number of machines would not be threatening to the tribes. It was then determined that the tribes are likely to sue the track regardless of the number of machines involved. So, this plan was placed on the back burner. — Roll out a lot of machines, perhaps as many as 1,000, get ready for litigation and make a fair amount of money while things work their way through the courts. — Hold tight for now but seek redress from the Legislature. In short, change the law so that HHR would be allowed on racetrack grounds. This now becomes a battle of the lobbyists and the tribes don't lose often. It could be a negotiating point. HHR is not believed to be a serious concern of the tribes as the amount of money, in the grand scheme, is not that much. The tribes have opposed any form of gambling it doesn't control for fear of the 'slippery slope' of adding more gambling it does not control. But the tribes may be willing to allow HHR if they can gain concessions in the Legislature on internet gambling, which remains their No. 1 concern. — The tracks negotiate with just a single tribe, not the consortium of all of them, to allow HHR on their property. A representative of the tribes told The Times that no individual tribal entity could negotiate on their own. But … there are 109 tribes in California and 76 California Indian gaming casinos (and five mini-casinos). Total revenue is $9 billion. This could set up infighting in the tribal community that could strengthen the tracks' position, only because there is not an enormous amount of money at stake. Again, if the tribes were to get something in return, such as concessions on internet wagering, the equation could change. This may eventually end up in the wheelhouse of Rob Bonta, the California attorney general. His office, when contacted by The Times, referred the question about HHR to the CHRB, which is in favor of HHR. But it is unclear whether the attorney general endorses that position or simply was declining to discuss it publicly. The specter of HHR in California has been there for a while. But it exploded when CHRB chairman Greg Ferraro told the New York Times in November that HHR machines would be in California tracks shortly and that the CHRB would approve it. 'I guess the cat is out of the bag,' one CHRB commissioner told The Times. But Ferraro's comments seemed premature as months passed without HHR machines appearing on the CHRB agenda. Beneath all the politics, how quickly tracks can use HHR machines likely hinges on whether they are considered games of chance or skill. If it is skill, and proved to be a pari-mutuel product, then the path to success is much easier. If it is shown to be a game of chance, such as slot machines, then it would be nearly impossible to use the machines without tribal cooperation. The Times played the 1/ST Racing HHR machine, powered by PariMAX, and the Churchill Downs product under the name Exacta. Representatives of both products were willing to exhibit their products at the Global Symposium in Tucson, but declined to publicly discuss the machines. There is little doubt that the machines are designed to provide fast action with a payout that is clearly better than horse racing. Takeout on horse racing gambling — the fee immediately withheld from any winnings — is usually in the mid to late teens but can exceed 20%. The average take on a slot machine is 82% to 95%. People familiar with California horsemen's sentiments told The Times that they probably would accept an 8% takeout, with at least one point (of 100) going to breeding, at least two or three for purses and the remainder split between the track and the tribes. Kentucky has about an 8% takeout, which is far superior to what bettors get if playing the horses. Playing the HHR machines is identical to the experience of playing a slot machine. You can play as fast or slow as you want and your eyes are transfixed on the middle of the machine where you see the traditional symbols of cherries, dollar signs and jackpot payoffs. You can hit another button and get minimal handicapping information that, essentially, is worthless to someone who really wants to play horse racing. If you pull the handle, or push the button, the wheels spin until the result of traditional slot symbols is final. Then at the top of the machine, you get about the last second or two of the race. No more. There is an option to view the full race, but few use it. 'We just discovered that people don't want to watch the race, they just want the action and that the race slows things down,' said a vendor representative who said they could not be quoted on any issue. HISA's Keech helped develop the first HHR machines and his name is on the original patent. 'When you go to play a slot machine, it's like going to a movie, there's a particular experience you're looking for,' Keech said. 'As a player, what you want in the experience is not watching horse racing. Sorry, it's not. But it's a way for horse racing to monetize historic content. 'It's OK for movies to do that, it's OK for singers to do that, it's OK for all these other industries to do that, so why is everyone wigged out that horse racing wants to monetize its content. … I have some disagreements with some of the designs of things, but no, it is 100% not a slot machine. If you look at a slot math model and then look at an HHR math model, they aren't even close.' If you wondered how HHR can crank out as many races as it can and still build a mutuel pool, it's because of a model that you aren't just playing people in the same room as you, but all over the country. Santa Anita believes it has the infrastructure ready to go. In late November, the track rolled out the machines and plugged them in on the third-floor grandstand. At the time, Butler said the machines were at the track since at least 2019 when he joined the company. HHR experts looked at pictures of the machines and verified they are very old models. Butler was angry that word of the machines had leaked and when The Times inquired about them, he ordered the machines to be shut off and put back in storage. If Santa Anita were to add machines, they would probably be newer models produced by the company that owns the track. Unless an agreement can be reached with the tribes, the use of HHR machines in California is likely to be decided by the courts. And perhaps the question of whether HHR is a game of skill or chance will favor horse racing, despite some obvious challenges. 'You know the old saying, 'If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck?'' said Marc Guilfoil, HISA's director of state racing commission relations. 'Well, we call those swimming chickens.'
