COUNTYWIDE : Fair Board to Decide Fate of Horse Racing

Orange County Fair Board directors are expected to decide Thursday whether to discontinue live thoroughbred horse racing, which lost about $200,000 at last year’s fair.

A three-member committee has recommended that the Fair Board scratch the horse racing events, which are scheduled to run July 27 through Aug. 15 at Los Alamitos Race Course.

An increase in area horse racing events, the growing number of satellite off-site betting facilities (not permitted in Costa Mesa) and the slow economy have combined to cut attendance as well as the fair’s share of the betting handle, spokeswoman Jill Lloyd said.

When the Fair Board first leased facilities at the Los Alamitos course in 1977, crowds of 15,000 generated more than $2 million in receipts per day, Lloyd said.

In 1980, the track posted a record attendance of 17,825 people and $3 million in receipts.

Last year however, revenues sometimes dipped below $1 million a night.

The Fair Board had hoped to install its own off-track betting with live television transmissions at the Costa Mesa fairgrounds but was prohibited from doing so by a 1987 law. Lloyd said Costa Mesa may have been excluded because a proliferation of off-site betting was reportedly cutting into attendance at live races at other Southern California tracks.

A measure introduced by AssemblymanGil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) to allow the Orange County Fair to install its own off-track betting satellite was withdrawn in 1990 after the Costa Mesa City Council and local residents raised concerns about traffic and noise.

The Fair Board postponed its pursuit of the off-track facility to emphasize a “good neighbor” policy, officials said. Norbert J. Bartosik, general manager of the fair board, said officials have no future plans to seek an off-site betting facility.

Orange County Fair officials estimate that an off-site facility on the fairgrounds would generate between $10,000 and $16,000 daily.