Former Head of Horsemen’s Group Testifies : Canceled Del Mar Track Race Blamed on INS

A one-day cancellation of thoroughbred racing at the Del Mar Race Track in August was blamed on the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service during a formal hearing Friday by the California Horse Racing Board.

The cancellation of the Saturday race card cost the state $250,000 and an equal amount purses and profits was lost by the track and horsemen.

Robert Frankel, former president of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Assn., testified Friday that he had not advised other horse trainers to boycott the Saturday races at a closed-door meeting held two days before the cancellation. Only 63 horses were entered, not enough to conduct a full day of racing.

The racing board members, some skeptical of Frankel’s explanation, conceded that his testimony about the events leading up to the Aug. 24 cancellation could not be proven false. The investigation was ended by a unanimous vote of the board.

Frankel read a lengthy statement at the hearing that detailed events leading to the cancellation. His statements placed the blame on an early morning raid conducted by the INS the day before the cancellation.

Frankel said he called a meeting of other trainers, excluding horse owners “because they just talked a lot and didn’t add much” information toward solving the problem.

He said that INS officials had been meeting with horsemen about the problem of employment of illegal aliens at the race track for several days and “we thought we had an agreement” that would avoid a threatened roundup by the INS. However, after the Aug. 22 negotiating session, INS gave the horsemen’s group an unacceptable counteroffer that was rejected by horsemen’s association directors, Frankel testified.

He said that he then informed the backstretch workers, which included 1,000 to 1,500 illegal aliens, of the breakdown in talks and warned them that an INS raid was imminent.

The raid netted 123 undocumented workers, Frankel said. “They all had left the track except the 123,” he said.

He swore that he had not advised other trainers to withhold their horses from the Saturday racing card but had only told them, when asked, that he did not have enough help to ready his own horses and would not enter them.

Other trainers and owners present at the hearing Friday supported Frankel’s statements.

Frankel said that the cancellation of racing at Del Mar might have continued for the remaining 17 days of the season if he “had not taken a compromising attitude” and made peace with federal immigration officials. He said the standoff ended when the INS “capitulated” because “somebody had put the heat on” and INS officials in Washington had ordered regional INS officials to “back off” and let racing resume at Del Mar.

Immigration officials could not be reached for comment late Friday.

In response to Horse Racing Board members’ questions, Frankel said that he had not called an official meeting of the horsemen’s association about the alien worker problem.

“I called a meeting of the trainers,” Frankel said. He excluded horse owners because “the place (Del Mar Fairgrounds) was crawling with the media, and I thought that some of them might get in (by posing as) owners.”

When queried about how he knew about the raid beforehand, Frankel said that he did not know for certain when the sweep would occur “but I figured that they weren’t going to do it on a weekend and pay overtime.”

He admitted that he told track workers about the pending INS sweep because “I was responsible for them being there. I kept them at the track all of that week. I had to tell them how the talks with INS had come out”--that the horsemen’s group had rejected an INS proposal made Thursday evening.

The raid occurred shortly before 6 a.m. Aug. 23, a Friday.

Horse Racing Board Chairman Benjamin Felton concluded the hearing with a stern warning to the thoroughbred horsemen: “This is a very serious matter.. . . The state lost $250,000 . . . I never want to see it happen again.”