At Thursday's regularly scheduled telephonic meeting of the California Horse Racing Board – where things got a little chippy from time to time – commissioner Oscar Gonzales led a silly, counterproductive fight to delay approval of an agenda item that any right-thinking horse racing regulatory board would have rubber-stamped in a matter of minutes.
The item was simple enough, really nothing more than a housekeeping detail. The board was asked to consider whether to approve an amendment to the CHRB's drug classifications to update the “alphabetical substances list” to align with the Association of Racing Commissioners International Uniform Classification Guidelines for Foreign Substances. It's a necessary move when ARCI makes modifications to a list that virtually all racing states use. It's done upon the recommendation of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium.
Gonzales, the board's vice chairman, meandered down a word salad path, saying California should not try to “ramrod” new rules through at a time when the state needs to “tread lightly” because the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, the national regulatory oversight board created through recently passed federal legislation, is on the horizon.
In so doing, Gonzales went against the recommendation of Scott Chaney, the CHRB's executive director, equine medical director Dr. Rick Arthur, and the board's chairman, Dr. Gregory Ferraro, who voted against the delay.
Unfortunately, Gonzales enlisted enough support on what is increasingly becoming a splintered board to get his delay measure passed on a 4-3 vote.
After Gonzales responded to a request from Chaney for guidance on what additional information the board needs to approve the measure next month, Arthur could be heard on the call saying Gonzales' explanation was “crap.”
Gonzales apparently couldn't handle the truth.
“And there you go,” Gonzales said. “There was a profanity, and this is not the first time that Dr. Arthur has chosen very choice words and used vulgarities in a very professional setting. And Dr. Arthur I'd ask you to stand down and please never do that again. Whenever you've not gotten your way, you've attacked this board, you've questioned us, and in many cases you've undermined what we've tried to do on behalf of the horse racing industry. So please put your phone on mute and we'll never hear that from you again.”
Arthur then threw a zinger back at Gonzales.
“Well, my apologies,” he said. “I thought my phone was on mute. But it doesn't change my thoughts. This is silliness.”
The board then took a short break, apparently never having heard such profanity before. My goodness. Crap?
Incidentally, Gonzales is the same CHRB commissioner who led another silly fight last month to not approve a full year's license for the 2021 Los Alamitos Quarter Horse meeting, saying it would be better to only approve the first six months of the year because of concerns he has over safety issues. He won that vote in December but lost on Thursday when the board revisited the issue and approved a full year's license.
What made that exercise so foolish is the fact the CHRB has the authority to shut down any track in the state if they feel racing is unsafe.
Gonzales was appointed to the CHRB in September 2019 by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing the very real threat of a recall election, something that happened in 2003 when a petition drive called for a special election in which incumbent Gov. Gray Davis was ousted in favor of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I think it's crap that there's no way to recall a CHRB commissioner.
That's my view from the eighth pole.
The post View From The Eighth Pole: It’s Silly Season At The California Horse Racing Board appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
