Santa Anita has been the place for chaos

Traditionally, the thoroughbred horse race meeting that begins the day after Christmas, at the track at the foot of the scenic snow-topped San Gabriel Mountains, has the most expensive horses in the country and the best jockeys to ride them in an annual showcase for the sport.

A sport, it must be pointed out, that badly needs one.

This year, tradition has taken a back seat to chaos. "We shot ourselves in the foot," says Jerry Moss, music record producer, owner of 2005 Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo, and a respected horse owner, as well as a member of the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB).

Santa Anita's is a story of weather and new track surfaces.

Friday, the Great Race Place missed its 11th day of scheduled great races. That's 11 days of missed paychecks for people who park cars, take tickets, serve food, take bets and sweep up afterward -- generally people who can least afford it.

Santa Anita's Cushion Track doesn't drain well, is mostly a mess and, on some days, was more like an airline runway than a cushion. Some of the times run, on days when they could run, were Secretariat-like. Ask a Santa Anita official for an explanation of the near world-record times by $12,500 claimers and he will excuse himself out of embarrassment and leave the room.

The fairest assessment is that this is the result of bad luck and some bad judgment. The fallout has been lots of anger, finger-pointing, second-guessing and told-you-sos. From the guy who makes the $2 bet to the guy who mucks out the stalls to the guy who has a stable full of horses and a monthly training bill of $25,000, everybody has an opinion and nobody is happy.

The most frequent face appearing in the bull's-eye is Richard Shapiro, chairman of the CHRB. Shapiro led the charge that forced California track owners to spend roughly $10 million each to put down new, supposedly safer, racing surfaces. The perception was that horses were breaking down and dying in training and racing at alarming rates, and when Del Mar had the look of a daily death march in the summer of 2006, an urgency set in.

Soon came the CHRB mandate, of which Moss says, "Everybody involved in this was well-intentioned. Everybody in the room was on board."

Well, not everybody.

There was one abstention in the voting. Moss.