Horse racing board OKs Oak Tree meeting at Hollywood Park

The California Horse Racing Board gave final approval Friday for the Oak Tree Racing Assn. to hold its fall meeting from Sept. 30 through Oct. 31 at Hollywood Park.

Since 1969, Oak Tree has held its meeting at Santa Anita, but issues over the condition of the track surface at Santa Anita left Oak Tree officials embracing Hollywood Park as its home for this year.

The CHRB vote was 5-0 with one abstention. Some concern was expressed that the Northern California racing community could be affected by the decision of Oak Tree to hold night racing for the first time. There will be three Thursday night cards and three Friday night cards.

The opening-night card on Thursday, Sept. 30 will begin with a first post at 7:05 p.m. There will be back-to-back night racing cards on Oct. 21-22 and Oct. 28-29 as the track experiments with trying to attract a younger demographic by holding concerts after races.

Oak Tree officials last week also announced that it intended to hold its 2011 autumn meeting at Hollywood Park, not at Del Mar as planned.

Sherwood Chillingworth, executive vice president of Oak Tree, said that environmental reports for the low-lying areas of Del Mar during October would take longer than first thought. But Chillingworth has said that Oak Tree’s long-range plan is to establish a permanent home for its meeting at Del Mar.

eric.sonheimer@latimes.com