California Horse Racing Board gives autumn dates to Santa Anita-based Pacific Racing Assn.

Back to the future, but not quite.

The California Horse Racing Board voted Thursday to award the Southern California autumn racing dates from Sept. 28 through Nov. 6 to the Santa Anita-based Pacific Racing Assn., in a development that will effectively end more than 40 years of the Oak Tree Racing Assn. operating and controlling those dates.

The return of these race dates to the Arcadia track comes after the 2010 Oak Tree meeting was run at Hollywood Park because Santa Anita voided a lease with Oak Tree.

Until last fall, Oak Tree had held its meeting at Santa Anita since 1969, but issues over the condition of the track surface at Santa Anita left Oak Tree officials embracing Hollywood Park as its home for the 2010 meet.

Since then, Santa Anita has spent millions of dollars putting in a new dirt track, gaining a favorable response from horsemen who endorsed the decision to award the dates to Santa Anita.

Santa Anita has committed to making a “financial accommodation” to Oak Tree, which has donated $27 million to racing-related charities since it began holding meets in 1969. “We will have a role yet to be defined,” said Sherwood Chillingworth, executive vice president of Oak Tree. But Santa Anita “will be running the meet.”

However, Oak Tree owns the rights to the graded stakes that Santa Anita will probably run during the autumn meeting.

George Haines, president of Santa Anita, said no decision has been made on what to call the meet this fall.

Keith Brackpool, chairman of the CHRB, said the decision to give the dates to Santa Anita does not set a precedent for which track will get those dates for “2012 and onward.”

The CHRB also finalized meet dates for Fairplex, which will be Sept. 8-26, and Hollywood Park, Nov. 9-Dec. 18.

eric.sondheimer@latimes.com