Tracks’ Muddy Misery Finds Company : Horse racing: Unable to fill their cards for Monday because of the weather, Santa Anita and Bay Meadows will bend the law a bit and pool their resources.

After getting permission from the California Horse Racing Board, Santa Anita and Bay Meadows have an unprecedented strategy for Monday.

Unable to beat the continuing rainy weather, the two tracks joined forces to put together a Martin Luther King Day program.

Neither Santa Anita nor Bay Meadows was able to fill an entire racing card, so local bettors will see six live races in Arcadia and five simulcast races from the north.

Since the meeting began Dec. 26, Santa Anita has received 15.35 inches of rain, making it increasingly difficult for horses to train and eliminating turf racing. Consequently, fields have been dwindling--only 57 horses ran Saturday--and on Friday, Santa Anita’s vice president for racing, Tom Robbins, told track president Cliff Goodrich it was going to be difficult to fill nine races Monday.

Working with CHRB chairman Ralph Scurfield, vice chairman Don Valpredo and executive secretary Dennis Hutcheson, Goodrich and Bay Meadows president Jack Liebau agreed to exchange their signals.

“We knew (on Friday) Monday was going to be tough,” Goodrich said. “We can’t use the (turf course) and horses haven’t been able to train. These are circumstances no one can control, and we want to make the best of an unfortunate situation by putting together a card that will benefit fans and horsemen at both tracks.”

Despite the extended program, Goodrich said the card will be completed before sunset at 5:10. The fields will remain small, with only 78 horses entered at the two tracks. The biggest field is 10 for the $60,000 Pineapple Express, which will be run as the sixth race at Santa Anita.

To accommodate the two tracks, there had to be a loose interpretation of state law. Only feature races are permitted to be simulcast, so all the races on Monday had to be designated as such.

“With the extreme weather conditions and rains and the inability of either track to fill a whole card, it is in the best interest of racing to allow the simulcast of some feature races to make up a racing program for a very important holiday,” Hutcheson said in a statement.

The races run at Santa Anita on Monday will be the first, second, fourth, sixth, eighth and 10th; the others will come from Bay Meadows. Because of the unusual circumstances, there will be no trifecta nor any Pick Six or Pick Nine wagering. There will be $2 exactas on all 11 races.