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California Association of Racing Fairs

One organizer said it is a long shot, but there may be a
faint pulse in Northern California racing.

Acting outside the California Authority of Racing Fairs, Ferndale
reportedly will apply on its own for seven race dates in August and September,
according to Daily Racing Form.

“This is still a work in progress,” Humboldt County Fair executive
Greg Gomes told DRF’s Steve Andersen on Thursday. “We’re trying to keep
it going in the north.”

Flashback: NorCal fairs decide not to ask for 2025 dates.

It looks like they would be going it alone. Facing an exodus
of Thoroughbreds from Northern California since the June closing of Golden Gate
Fields, the CARF board voted unanimously not to apply for racing dates this
summer at the Pleasanton, Sacramento, Ferndale and Fresno fairs. Santa Rosa, which
broke away from CARF in 2008, also decided not to pursue a 2025 racing season.

Gomes told DRF that he was confident Ferndale could
host races Aug. 16, 17, 23, 24, 30 and 31 and Sept. 1, one fewer day that it
ran last year.

The application to get races approved by the California
Horse Racing Board is a two-step process. The first could come at the next CHRB
meeting March 20 in Sacramento. If the dates were granted, Ferndale then would
have to get its license approved by the board at a subsequent meeting, a
process that requires more paperwork to show it can live up to its promises.

Resistance may be expected from Southern California, which
gets to keep all the simulcast money generated in the state as long as there
are no races in the north.

Gomes and his team would have to do some aggressive
recruiting to get owners and trainers to return to Northern California for a
short meet. With the last training center in the region closing next month in
Pleasanton, horses have been dispersed to Santa Anita, Emerald Downs near Seattle,
Turf Paradise in Phoenix and other tracks across the country.

The Oregon fairs could be a source for some horses, Gomes
told DRF, since summer meets there would bookend the proposed dates at
Ferndale.