los alamitos | Horse Racing Free Tips

Safety Is The Top Priority? Despite Scrutiny, Los Alamitos Conducts Racing On Rain-Sodden Course

On Saturday, the Los Angeles Times' John Cherwa found himself staring at the live feed from Los Alamitos “in horror” because of the sloppy track conditions on which the horses were running.

“The first few races were OK, and then the rains came and came and the track became sloppier and sloppier,” Cherwa wrote in his horse racing newsletter for the LA Times. “The horses on the short Quarter Horse sprints were clearly slipping and sliding and bumping into each other because they couldn't get traction.”

In the evening's seventh race, a 3-year-old named Gowdy fell coming out of the starting gate and dislodged his jockey. A statement from Los Al's marketing and publicity director Orlando Gutierrez explains that Gowdy “locked up from behind” at the start of the race, causing the fall, but that the horse had returned to his stall and “appears to be doing well.”

His jockey, Cruz Mendez, also seems to have escaped major injury since he returned to ride at Los Al on Sunday's card.

“Why were there horses racing on such an unmanageable track if safety is your top priority?” Cherwa questioned. “The stewards or the track superintendent have the right to suspend racing. In this case, it stopped raining by the eighth and final race. Could racing have been put on hold earlier while the bad weather passed?”

On July 10 last year, the California Horse Racing Board held an emergency meeting to discuss a rash of equine fatalities at Los Alamitos, resulting in a 10-day probationary period. Los Al produced a new plan for equine and rider safety which was approved by the board, including an entry review panel.

CHRB vice chairman Oscar Gonzales spoke out against Los Al's safety record (29 equine fatalities were reported during racing or training from Dec. 27, 2019 through 2020) at the CHRB's December meeting, encouraging his fellow commissioners to grant the track only a six-month license. That move prompted Los Al owner Ed Allred to threaten shutting down racing at the Cypress, Calif. track altogether.

The CHRB's January meeting saw the Los Al license reinstated at a full year, despite two additional equine fatalities recorded on Jan. 17. After the vote was handed down, Gonzales promised increased scrutiny of Los Al's horse safety record.

View From The Eighth Pole: It’s Silly Season At The California Horse Racing Board

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.

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CHRB Extends Los Alamitos’ License To Full Year; Gonzalez Pledges Closer Scrutiny Of Horse Safety

Despite Wednesday's Los Angeles Times report on a pair of equine fatalities at Los Alamitos on Jan. 17, the California Horse Racing Board voted to restore the track's full-year license during its Thursday meeting.

Back in December, the CHRB had deadlocked 3-3 in a vote to grant Los Alamitos a full year license for Quarter Horse racing, primarily due to concerns about horse safety after 29 fatalities were reported at Los Al from Dec. 27, 2019 through the end of 2020. Vice Chair Oscar Gonzalez recommended granting the track a six-month license, and the measure was eventually approved 5-1.

Los Alamitos' owner Ed Allred responded to the license ruling by threatening to shut down the track completely, arguing that he couldn't operate with a six-month license because horsemen need to be able to plan for an entire year.

According to the Thoroughbred Daily News, the CHRB heard over three hours of testimony and public comment before voting on the license. Chairman Gregory Ferraro, the lone nay vote in December, argued during Thursday's meeting that granting a six-month license was unnecessary since the CHRB can suspend licenses over safety issues at any time, but the final tally was 4-3, restoring Los Alamitos' year-round license.

Commissioner Alex Solis, absent from December's meeting, voted for the year-round license, along with Gregory Ferraro, Dennis Alfieri and Damascus Castellanos. Voting against were Gonzalez, Wendy Mitchell, and Brenda Washington Davis.

“This phase of engaging with Los Alamitos is a new one,” Gonzalez told his fellow commissioners. “And I don't want anyone to think for a minute that the powers that have been vested by the state of California in the CHRB, that [horse safety standards] are going to be compromised in any way. In fact, [enhanced scrutiny] is just a start if we don't see immediate and quick improvements when it comes to horse safety and the welfare of workers at Los Alamitos.”

Read more at the Thoroughbred Daily News.

The post CHRB Extends Los Alamitos’ License To Full Year; Gonzalez Pledges Closer Scrutiny Of Horse Safety appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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In CHRB Reversal, Los Al Gets Year-Long QH License

The California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) voted 4-3 Jan. 21 to grant Los Alamitos Race Course a full-year Quarter Horse racing license for 2021, superseding a 5-1 vote from last month that awarded only a six-month license out of concerns that management wasn't doing enough to mitigate the 29 equine deaths that occurred at the track in 2020.

In the immediate aftermath of that controversial interim licensure in December, Los Al owner Ed Allred had threatened to close his track and develop the property for a purpose other than racing, which would also affect the afternoon Thoroughbred meets that Los Al hosts in June/July, September and December. Allred had cited concerns that Los Al could not compete with other national Quarter Horse venues under only a six-month license, because owners, trainers and the track's racing office all need to make plans for an entire year of racing.

Striking a much more conciliatory and cooperative tone than at the last meeting, Allred and other Los Al executives, in asking for a reconsideration, testified on Thursday that they now have a more comprehensive equine safety plan in place, including the recent hiring of three retired CHRB investigators to oversee improvements related to horse health.

Yet even as Los Al officials spoke of those beefed-up efforts to improve equine safety, the CHRB pressed track officials about two Thoroughbred training-related deaths that occurred at Los Al Jan. 17. One horse suffered a catastrophic leg fracture during a workout, and a filly that had just completed a workout and was about to be endoscoped in her stall by a veterinarian died suddenly. Both incidents are under CHRB investigation.

It's worth noting that back at the December meeting, an initial motion to grant a standard one-year license to Los Al failed after the board–which was short by one member because commissioner Alex Solis was not in attendance–deadlocked 3-3. A second motion to grant the one-year license conditional upon a mid-year safety review also came up tied 3-3. Faced with not granting any form of licensure to Los Al, the CHRB eventually settled 5-1 on the half-year license, with chairman Gregory Ferraro, DVM, the lone dissenter.

On Thursday, the CHRB took nearly three hours of testimony and public commentary on reconsidering the one-year license for Los Al. Prior to the vote, Ferraro reiterated his point from last month that granting only a half-year license made no sense considering the CHRB has the power to halt any California track's racing at any time over safety issues.

“What does a six-month license achieve, except animosity within the industry?” Ferraro asked rhetorically. “I don't see the need to limit the length of the license. Given the economic hardships resulting from the pandemic, why should the CHRB put at risk the financial viability of Los Alamitos and the Quarter Horse racing industry?”

Vice chair Oscar Gonzales, who had pushed hard for the six-month license last month, lauded Los Al Thursday for its renewed commitments to horse safety. But he said he still wasn't going to change his mind about wanting the track to be more closely watched because of its high number of equine fatalities.

“When I see an industry or a racetrack react in the way [Los Al] did by [giving] pushback on a one-year versus a six-month license, it makes me wonder what happens when the newly established federal regulatory powers take full effect,” Gonzalez said, alluding to the recently enacted Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act.

Gonzalez then told his fellow commissioners who support granting a one-year license that they should be aware that “this phase of engaging with Los Alamitos is a new one. And I don't want anyone to think for a minute that the powers that have been vested by the state of California in the CHRB, that [those standards] are going to be compromised in any way. In fact, [closer scrutiny] is just a start if we don't see immediate and quick improvements when it comes to horse safety and the welfare of workers at Los Alamitos.”

Commissioner Wendy Mitchell said she sided with Gonzalez in this sense.

“There are some serious credibility issues, from my perspective, with the [Los Al closure] threats that were made at the last meeting,” Mitchell said. “This is our job and our responsibility…. If we do something you don't like and then you threaten to shut down, that's not the way to work with a regulatory body. And that's not an appropriate response.”

With the full seven-member board voting on Thursday, there was no chance for another round of deadlocks.

Voting in favor of granting a full-year 2021 license to Los Al were commissioners Ferraro, Solis, Dennis Alfieri and commissioner Damascus Castellanos.

Voting against were commissioners Gonzalez, Mitchell, and Brenda Washington Davis.

In other CHRB business, the agenda for Thursday's meeting included an option for the board to convene a closed session to hear two separate requests to overturn and appeal a Dec. 9 stewards decision not to disqualify Justify and Hoppertunity based on their 2018 scopolamine positives. With the open portion of Thursday's CHRB meeting extending to nearly five hours, it was not immediately clear before deadline for this story if those matters were taken up in the executive session or what action might have resulted.

The post In CHRB Reversal, Los Al Gets Year-Long QH License appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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