I worry about losing these experiences as horse racing dies in California.
First comes the freedom to move around. Horse racing is the only sporting event where fans—real fans, not tourists planted at reserved tables in the grandstand high above the finish line—are always in motion.
With 30 minutes between each race, horse players have ground to cover. Find a quiet place to review the program or Racing Form for the upcoming race. Then get moving. No time to waste.
My first destination is the paddock, the equivalent of a theater’s backstage. From there, look for a betting kiosk, a miniature slot machine that takes your cash, provides a receipt and pays back when your hunch finishes in the money.
Finally, find a spot near the rail to watch the horses thunder down the homestretch.
The paddock is my favorite place, a sanctuary where you can stand 10 feet from an athlete—a racehorse—and look into his eyes and study the muscles in his flanks and gauge his disposition and admire his teeth. Try that at a basketball game.
Grooms and trainers saddle their racehorses in the paddock. They whisper advice to jockeys or drivers. Ten minutes before post time, they lead the animal toward the track.
Baseball’s ritual batting practice is the only sports warmup that approaches the sublime anticipation of the paddock. Sadly, few baseball fans watch or appreciate batting practice. In the paddock, race fans become supernumeraries in the opera’s background.
The most graceful first act in sports takes place outside the paddock, the moment when a jockey lofts into the saddle or a harness driver slides into the racing bike.
Jockeys can’t mount a horse alone. They grab the reins and clutch a handful of mane, bend their left knee and hop. An associate grabs the bent leg and propels the jockey skyward. I’ve seen it a thousand times. Always inspiring, a graceful ballet pas de cheval.
Harness drivers at Cal Expo are less poetic but equally fluid when they ease into the bike. The horse is often moving. The seat is tiny. There are wheels and shafts to consider.
While all this happens, the driver dips backward, sits and swings both legs over in a smooth maneuver. Never bet on a clumsy driver.
These are experiences I worry about losing as horse racing dies in California. The bleak prognosis is no exaggeration.
Golden Gate Fields folded this year, leaving Northern California without a fulltime track. The State Fair added a weekend of racing. Pleasanton’s fairgrounds ran a fall thoroughbred meet. Neither replaced Golden Gate Fields.
In Southern California, Santa Anita threatens to close. California tracks lack authorization to offer gambling alternatives—slot machines and sports betting—that support racing in other states.
Pathetically, the California Horse Racing Board struggled to close an $18 million budget gap to fund itself this year.
Money from racetracks keeps the racing board in business. Each track covers its own stewards, veterinarians and drug tests. Ancillary duties—investigators, licensing personnel and headquarters on Hurley Way—are mostly funded by Del Mar and Santa Anita. Those Southern California tracks consider the burden unfair.
To cover expenses, the racing board slightly lowered the tariffs on the two big SoCal tracks and raised fees for everyone else. Thankfully, the board spared NorCal from devastation.
The moves preserved Cal Expo’s winter harness meet, a half-century tradition Friday and Sunday nights, December to May.
The Cal Expo paddock is a dump compared to the gilded paddocks at Del Mar and Santa Anita. At big tracks, paddocks ringed with flowers and statuary worthy of a celebrity wedding evoke racing’s past glory.
Cal Expo’s paddock is a forlorn patch at the grandstand’s south end. A fabric tent keeps rain away.
Even without grandeur, the Cal Expo paddock is cozy on drizzly Friday nights. Love to see you there before it’s all gone.
R.E. Graswich can be reached at regraswich@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram: @insidesacramento.
