This is the nineteenth of a major series of articles concerning racetracks in the USA. We continue our review of USA racetracks with a further look at the closed harness racing tracks of California.
California –
Los Alamitos (LA)
Los Alamitos is closed for harness racing purposes although it remains a live racing venue for quarter horses and thoroughbreds plus simulcasts. The track, originally five eighths of a mile with a 558 ft straight and chutes of four and a half furlongs and 550 yards. It was expanded to one mile in circumference in 2014.
Los Alamitos located in Southern California started out as a non-betting facility in 1947 on a 435 acre private ranch in Orange County, owned by Frank Vessels Sr who amassed his fortune in the construction industry. Racing in Los Alamitos started with match races contested on the Vessels ranch.
Los Alamitos was granted a license to conduct pari mutual wagering on quarter horses in 1951. The first pari mutuel meeting at Los Alamitos held on 4 December 1951 lasted eleven days, closing on 15 December. Raining for ten of the eleven days of the inaugural meeting, Frank Vessels and his family spent many hours repairing rain induced damage to the racecourse. Following the first meeting, Vessels poured $100,000 of his personal wealth into track improvements lobbying the California Horse Racing Board for a total of sixteen days racing which were granted.
Harness racing was conducted at Los Alamitos from 1972 until 2000. Lloyd Arnold after whom the Lloyd Arnold Pace was named was a prominent harness racing owner (Warm Breeze, Sanabelle Island) and track operator. Arnold bought Los Alamitos in the late 1980s, eventually selling the track to his partner Dr. Ed Allred who eventually became the sole owner of Los Alamitos.
Betting and attendance records were set on 29 November 1980 when 17,234 fans bet $3,028,255. The Vessels Family had always owned Los Alamitos but in 1990 Allred who made his fortune owning and operating the largest privately held chain of abortion clinics in the country acquired fifty per cent ownership with the assistance of RD Hubbard. The lavish $5m turf club restaurant, Vessels Club opened in 1995 being recognised as the top sports park restaurant in Southern California. The track also opened the Player’s Club, Rodney’s Bar (named after trainer Rodney Hart) and Schwanie’s Grill (named for trainer Blane Schvaneveldt) during Dr. Allred’s tenure.
In the early 1990’s Los Alamitos staged the “Cameltonian” Friday night, a quarter-mile exhibition match race between an undefeated racing camel and a standardbred pacer. Called the “Desert Derby” the race matched The Sultan, courtesy of the National Date Festival scheduled Feb. 16-25 in Indio, with New Zealand bred pacer Armaway from a standing start. Veteran camel jockey Danny LaFon rode against veteran NZ driver Mark Harder, the winner of this unique event is unknown.
Among the more highly rated harness events held at Los Alamitos were the US Breeders Crown Open’s Paces in 1986, the Californian Breeders Crown in the 1980’s and 1990’s and the Fireball Series from 1982 which had featured several exported NZ bred winners until the tracks closure in 2000.
In April 1994, Steve Andersen writing in the Los Angeles Times proffered that the future of California harness racing was once again uncertain.
In late March, the lessees of Los Alamitos for harness racing, Premier Harness Racing Assn (PHRA) appeared at the monthly meeting of the California Horse Racing Board in Emeryville, requesting six simulcast races each night for harness meetings at Cal Expo in Sacramento. The PHRA planned a meeting including four nights of weekly racing on Wednesdays through Saturdays from 29 April to 23 July. The nightly programmes would include six simulcast races from the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey followed by eight live races. Los Alamitos’s typical programme included three simulcast races and up to twelve live races three nights a week, Thursday through Saturday.
Quarter horse industry representatives opposed the PHRA’s proposal believing simulcasting would impact betting on live quarter horse racing during their 1994 summer season at Los Alamitos. The CHRB approved four simulcast races for the beginning of Cal Expo’s meeting, reducing to three after 15 June when sufficient two year olds would begin racing alleviating a horse shortage.
Dissatisfied PHRA interests requested CHRB members, quarter horse interests, especially Edward Allred, fifty percent owner of Los Alamitos and President of the Horsemen’s Quarter Horse Racing Assn to reconsider and allow six simulcast races a night. With no precedent to overturn such a decision, PHRA considered it would be difficult to proceed without six simulcast races per night at Cal Expo leaving investors with little opportunity to recoup their investment. Average betting in 1993 at Cal Expo was $393,000 compared to $841,000 at Los Alamitos. The PHRA hoped to use simulcasting as a means to raise money for operators and to increase stakes for live racing.
To illustrate the difficulties being encountered, the thirteen week meeting (January – March 1994) only went ahead after the CHRB approved the PHRA’s lease in December 1993, three weeks before the meeting started. Working through the Christmas holidays to frame race programmes it was fortunate many horsemen were already operating in California and had horses at some level of training. The meeting began slowly reflective of the number pf horses available, stakes were cut twenty percent at the end of January before betting and stakes slowly rose again to earlier levels.
It is against this background that harness racing fought to survive doing so at Los Alamitos until its final meetings were held in 2000. In an attempt to improve the situation, the state of California in 1994 allowed Los Alamitos to conduct thoroughbred racing, usually at 4½ furlongs. Los Alamitos presents the race with the richest stake in California, the Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity, a championship race for two year old quarter horses that commenced in 1995. The 2008 running was the richest non-Breeders Cup race ever in California for a stake of $2,038,250, the only quarter horse race in the country with guaranteed $2m prizemoney. Los Alamitos also has the richest three year old quarter horse race in the country, the Los Alamitos Super Derby.
In 2011 Los Alamitos celebrated sixty years of racing with a January to December schedule. The demolition of Hollywood Park in 2014 left Los Alamitos the winner. The Los Alamitos racing surface was expanded to a mile to accommodate the inaugural thoroughbred meeting picking up some of Hollywood Park’s dates. By 2021, now seventy years in existence, Los Alamitos continues to host quarter horses and thoroughbreds (seven daytime thoroughbred weeks in 2022) plus simulcasts of racing as well as the stabling of hundreds of horses that run at Santa Anita and other tracks.
Exposition Park
This one mile multipurpose track in Los Angeles was known as Agricultural Park and operated from 1872. The site was rebuilt and renamed Exposition Park in 1913.
Napa Turf Club
Harness racing began at the Napa Turf Club track in 1889.
Oakland
Two large parks were opened in Emervyille in the 1870s, both built by Edward Wiard. The one mile oval shaped Oakland Trotting Park track built in 1871 was located west of San Pablo Avenue and north of Park Avenue and about two miles south of Golden Gate Fields in Emeryville. In addition to elegant grandstands surrounding the track, extensive stables stretching from Park Avenue to Powell Street stabled over 300 horses. Temescal Creek was re-routed through an underground culvert below the racetrack. The Shell Mound Park built five years later, functioned as a picnic resort and amusement park and was located west of the track next to the bay.
The parks were originally in unincorporated Alameda County, located north of Emery Tract. Edward Wiard born on 10 March 1815 in New Haven, Connecticut, worked as an engineer on steamboats as a young man. Immigrating to California in 1850 he prospected for gold in Mariposa County. In 1858 he purchased one hundred and fifty acres of land in an unincorporated area north of Oakland that later became part of Emeryville.
Competitive harness racing in the eastern part of San Francisco Bay commenced at Oakland Trotting Park in 1871 continuing for a period of twenty five years. The popularity of harness racing at the time saw several Bay Area cities including Hayward, Alameda and San Francisco with tracks.
President Ulysses S. Grant visited Oakland Trotting Park on 25 October 1879, the day legendary trotter St Julien broke the trotter’s mile record with a time of T2: 13¾TT. Oakland was also the venue for Grand Circuit racing between 1871 and 1896. However not hosting thoroughbred initially restricted its ability to make a profit.
With Wiard dying in 1886, the Oakland Trotting Park and Shell Mound Park were purchased by Judge James Mee of San Francisco. In 1895 Thomas Williams leased the aging trotting facility of Oakland Trotting Park across the Bay at Emeryville. Williams was determined to transform it and immediately demolished Oakland’s “rough-board, white-washed, dusty, insecure old grandstand,” as described in TheBreeder and Sportsman. He resurfaced the track and built a new grandstand in 1896.
Following a complete renovation the track reopened on 24 October 1896 with the Oakland Trotting Park renamed the New California Jockey Club. Trotting races were discontinued with the new track featuring thoroughbred horse racing at the Bay Area’s newest thoroughbred venue.
Emeryville was incorporated on 2 December 1896 with the racetrack falling within the border of the newly created town. The nearby neighbourhoods did not become part of the City of Oakland until an 1897 annexation vote.
Oakland Trotting Park (circa 1905-1907)
From 1871 until 1911 the racetrack provided entertainment for the residents of East Bay. In 1911 the track was forced to close when horse racing was outlawed in California. It was not until 1933 that the ban on horse racing and betting was repealed in the state of California but the Oakland track was long gone by then.
After horse racing ceased in 1911, the track was used for automobile racing as well as airplane racing and aerial acrobatics for a few years. Demolition of the track began in 1915 but the remaining structures caught fire and burned to the ground before the job had been completed. An industrial park stands on the site of the former racetrack today. It includes most of the land occupied today by the Pixar and Novartis corporate campuses.
San Joaquin Fairgrounds (STK)
The 252 acre San Joaquin Fairgrounds are located at Airport and Martin Luther King Boulevard in Stockton. The fairground facility opened in 1860 and today includes six major buildings, a grandstand with seating for 3,800, a satellite wagering facility, Livestock Barns and parking for 5,000 vehicles.
Stockton horse racing has been held at the San Joaquin Fairgrounds since 13 August 1934 after pari mutual betting was legalised in California in 1933. A record crowd of 11,791 and a betting record of $1,930,509 were set on 15 August 1987.
Racing is conducted on Stockton’s one mile oval dirt track (1,003 ft home straight) with two chutes, one of six furlongs and the other 1¼ miles. The track surface is a sandy loam suitable for quarter horse and thoroughbred racing. Harness racing took place in earlier years and again for a brief period in the early 2000’s, commencing in 2004 under lights.
Simulcasting is available in the 24,000 square foot Winners Gaming and Sports Emporium. The San Joaquin Room provides betting facilities together with state of the art electronic technology with over ninety 25 inch monitors and six giant screens. A large refreshment and food service area, centrally located bar, theatre area and an outdoor patio complete with television monitors and self-service betting machines are available. The Champions Room provides a private turf club, with private bar, personalized tables with individual television monitors, food and beverage service at your table, seven giant screens and a private patio.
Stockton
Stockton in California was a one mile kite track that operated from 1891 to the late 1930s. With its single huge balloon turn and long straightaways, this course was a natural for the lowering of time records. In 1891, numerous trotters mile records were set on this track – yearling : Bell Bird T2:26¼T; 2yo : Arion T2:10¾TT and trotters/trotters mares’ mile record : Sunol, T2:08¼TT. Palo Alto established himself as the champion trotting stallion of the world at Stockton (T2:08¾).
In 1893 a race which made harness history was held at Stockton, the immortal McKinney, then aging and tailing off, was sent out against Klamath, Ottinger, Steve Whipple, Shylock and Richmond Jr. The race started Saturday afternoon and finished on Monday. Requiring eight heats it was one of the most gruelling and hotly fought affairs ever witnessed. The first heat required twenty scoreups before Steve Whipple won it, McKinney won the second heat run on Saturday.
It took six heats and countless score ups on Monday to decide the winner. Ottinger won third heat, Klamath the fourth, Ottinger won the fifth, McKinney the sixth, Klamath the seventh. Only three staggered out for the eighth and last round. McKinney, Klamath and Ottinger battled it out in the last heat. McKinney was the winner—and still the champion—by a head, winning the last heat in 2:22, having won the second heat in 2:11¼, which gives some idea of how tired these horses were.
Next ArtIcle : closed tracks of California – part four
Peter Craig
1 February 2023
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
Driving The Future Of Harness Racing
