Horse racing dates at Sonoma County Fair trigger high-stakes fight

Sonoma County Fair officials are battling efforts to move their 2017 horse racing dates completely into August, which they say could create a conflict between fair, carnival and school schedules and would exacerbate declines in wagering at the Santa Rosa track.

Local officials on Friday lost a round to other regional fairs when a committee of the state Horse Racing Board voted unanimously to recommend the races next year in Santa Rosa take place from Aug. 4 to 20, a week later than this year.

All seven members of the state racing board will take up the recommended schedule later this month.

If enacted, that schedule would constitute the second time in three years that the fair has had its race dates pushed later into the summer and would represent a blow to an institution that already is seeing a drop in wagering.

Following Friday’s committee vote at the Santa Anita Park Race Track in Arcadia, Sonoma County Fair CEO Rebecca Bartling expressed strong disappointment in the recommendation.

“It’s not acceptable to us,” said Bartling, who spoke at the meeting. “It has major financial impacts to us.”

This year’s fair ran from July 22 to Aug. 7.

The fair can’t move its schedule back another week, Bartling said, because its carnival operator is committed to the Napa Valley Expo, which has announced its 2017 dates of Aug. 9 to 13.

“We can’t run a fair without a carnival,” she said.

Fair Board President Lisa Wittke Schaffner, who didn’t attend the meeting, said Friday she was still absorbing the ramifications of the committee’s action. But she said fair officials will urge the state horse racing board not to push back the racing dates for Santa Rosa.

“We will absolutely be advocating and lobbying and hoping they’ll rethink” the recommended dates, Wittke Schaffner said.

Bartling previously suggested that the push to change the racing calendar is coming partly from Alameda County Fair officials who want to move their racing dates later into July next year.

Racing revenue from the Sonoma County Fair dropped almost 16 percent this year to $1.48 million, according to figures provided by the fair. In 2013, those revenues amounted to $1.86 million.

Part of the decline has occurred because younger adults aren’t as interested as their elders in betting on the races, Bartling said.

But the drop also is due partly to a 2014 decision by the state racing board that pushed Sonoma’s racing dates back one week. As a result, for the last two years horses and jockeys have been racing in Santa Rosa for several days after the fair itself has ended.

“It was a very sad experience,” Bartling said of the three race days that were held after the fair closed Aug. 7. “Nobody was here.”

With respect to next year’s calendar, one question concerns when the county’s 40 school districts will schedule the start of the 2017-18 academic year. Many districts, including Santa Rosa, Petaluma and Cotati-Rohnert Park, started classes this year on Aug. 17.

Most districts are still devising schedules for the next academic year. Those calendars will matter because a number of teachers take summer jobs at the fair and hundreds of youth show lambs, hogs, beef and other animals at the junior livestock auction.

The fair’s paid attendance this year declined 1 percent from 2015 to nearly 175,000. Total attendance remained virtually unchanged at almost 288,000.

The proposal to move back next summer’s racing schedule in Santa Rosa was supported by Golden Gate Fields and by the California Authority of Racing Fairs, which represents such venues as Cal Expo and the Alameda County Fair.

Mike Marten, public information officer for the horse racing board, said he couldn’t comment on the reasons behind the proposed switch in the racing schedule. But he noted that it’s difficult to change one fair’s racing dates without affecting the rest of the group.

“It’s a set of dominoes,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 707-521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @rdigit