More BS from CDI/Stronach Corp
Jan 3, 2015 1:58:04 GMT -5
Post by Jon on Jan 3, 2015 1:58:04 GMT -5
This is from yesterday. At least today's new shows something is being done. Should have already been done. Think both sides at fault. Damn CDI - let the horses sty in real stlls un til GS is finished!
UPDATED: New Year, New Uncertainty on Calder Backstretch
by Ray Paulick
It was business as usual on New Year’s morning at Gulfstream Park West, the South Florida racetrack that operated for years as Calder Race Course. Feed tubs for 900-plus Thoroughbreds were filled, stalls mucked and horses ridden out to exercise on the track’s one-mile oval.
That goes for the 440 horses stabled in the barns leased from track owner Churchill Downs Inc. to The Stronach Group – which owns and operates Gulfstream Park racetrack & casino eight miles to the east – and at least a couple of hundred horses in the “occupied zone,” a fenced-in area that by contract was to be vacated by midnight, Dec. 31. Anyone trespassing in that section of the stable is subject to prosecution for committing a felony, according to warning signs.
No one is certain how long “business as usual” will continue for those in the fenced off section of the stables.
UPDATE: On Friday, Jan. 2, Jim Freer reported for Bloodhorse.com that the horsemen inside the fenced-in section of the Calder stables were told they have one day to remove their horses and vacate the area. Access to training was cut off to horses inside the “occupied zone,” he reported.
On Dec. 31, Phil Combest, president of the Florida Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, gave me a tour of the stable and expressed frustration – frustration you could see on the faces of people everywhere on the Calder backstretch. Many grooms and stablehands are being forced to move out of their living quarters, too, and don’t know where they’ll sleep.
There were makeshift tents with horses moving into 10-by-10-foot stalls in an area controlled by The Stronach Group under the lease agreement. Erected on an asphalt parking lot, the tents and temporary stalls had rubber mats underneath the bedding, but they were nowhere near as suitable for an 1,100-pound Thoroughbred as the hundreds of empty stalls in deserted barns just steps away. There aren’t enough of these temporary stalls, either: Combest said 165 of them would still leave several hundred horses with nowhere to go.
Workers cleared out the recreation hall/canteen inside the occupied zone and many prepared to vacate their dormitories at a moment’s notice.
“The horses have to eat and need someone here to take care of them,” said one stablehand helping move items out of the recreation hall. “What are we supposed to do?”
Combest and others believed this day would never come, that a temporary deal would be worked out between executives for Churchill Downs and The Stronach Group to keep the stable area open until at least April 1, when a large number of horses return north to Kentucky, New York and elsewhere. Nearly all of the horses inside the occupied zone represent small stables that race year-round in South Florida.
“We were assured by Gulfstream Park management there would be no problem,” Combest said, “until about 10 days ago.” That’s when eviction notices were posted, saying, effective Jan. 1, 2015, anyone inside the fenced-in stable area would be considered a trespasser and prosecuted for committing a felony.
Expectations for an extension might have been a naïve belief, given the rancor that ensued when Gulfstream Park began racing head-to-head against Calder in 2013 during its traditional summer and fall dates. Gulfstream won that battle and when CDI officials agreed to give up operating Calder as a racetrack and allow the Stronach Group to control 100 percent of the Thoroughbred dates in South Florida, there were two agreements, according to Combest. The first, he said, involved the two tracks and the FHBPA, dealing with racing dates at Gulfstream Park and the rebranded Gulfstream Park West (formerly Calder), revenue from the Calder Casino and purses. Combest said the other was a two-party agreement between CDI and Gulfstream regarding the backstretch, only a portion of which was to remain open beyond Dec. 31, 2014. “I don’t know all the details of that contract,” he said.
That’s not the way Churchill Downs officials interpret the matter.
“Phil Combest and other members of the Florida HBPA were personally involved in the negotiations between Churchill Downs, The Stronach Group and the Florida HBPA in which the parties specifically agreed to a six-month transition period, ending on Dec. 31, allowing adequate time for any remaining horsemen in Calder’s stable area to find alternative stabling,” Courtney Norris, CDI’s director of corporate communications, said in an emailed statement.
“Instead of managing a process to find alternative stabling during the transition period, the number of horses significantly increased during this period following the July 1, 2014, effective date of the agreement.
“Since learning of these issues in December, Calder has taken steps to provide accurate information directly to horsemen stabled at Calder and have attempted to help identify alternative stabling locations. These efforts have been continuously hampered,” the statement continued.
“Had the Florida HBPA and Gulfstream worked collaboratively throughout the transition period, a safe and reasonable solution for alternative stabling could have easily been achieved. This is a critical aspect of the deal that all of the parties reached in order to save year-round racing in South Florida.”
Combest said the FHBPA has been trying to find alternate stabling for weeks but has not been successful. At one point last month, he said, Gulfstream Park officials got approval from Calder executive John Marshall to put up five large tents that would have housed 400 horses temporarily. Water and electricity was run to the area where the tents were going up at the end of an employee parking lot near the stable gate. Three of the tents were erected with the other two staked out and set to go. Then, Combest said, he suspects Marshall got word from CDI’s home office in Kentucky to take them down because they were on a portion of the property shared by the two racetrack companies.
“He said, ‘What are those tents doing there?’ and denied ever saying he gave approval for them to go up,” Combest said. The tents and material were disassembled and removed, though one remained standing on Dec. 31.
Marshall was not at his office Thursday, a Calder officials said, and did not reply to a request for comment.
“Calder has allowed a series of temporary tented barns to be built by Gulfstream in an authorized area that is safe for horses and located within a section of Calder’s stable area currently under Gulfstream’s control,” CDI spokesperson Norris said. “However, the other temporary tents that were attempted to be built, without notifying Calder, in an open and unrestricted employee parking lot are not a viable solution and pose significant legal, liability and other serious concerns.”
One of Combest’s greatest frustrations is that there appears to be no project in the works for CDI to develop the stable area and that it will sit empty and unused, just like the training track Calder officials shut down on July 1 when the agreement was signed.
“We couldn’t find any applications for permits of any kind,” Combest said. “There’s been all kinds of rumors about what they might do, but we’ve heard nothing for sure.”
Norris would not comment on whether there are immediate clearing or development plans for the fenced-off section of the stable area. “We have been working towards a Jan. 1 timeline to begin executing our long-term development plan since the contract became effective,” she said.
Meanwhile, for the horses and humans living in the occupied zone of the Calder backstretch, it’s day to day. For them, the new year brought new uncertainty.
A temporary tent (above) is substituting for the vacated barns in the fenced off Calder stable area
UPDATED: New Year, New Uncertainty on Calder Backstretch
by Ray Paulick
It was business as usual on New Year’s morning at Gulfstream Park West, the South Florida racetrack that operated for years as Calder Race Course. Feed tubs for 900-plus Thoroughbreds were filled, stalls mucked and horses ridden out to exercise on the track’s one-mile oval.
That goes for the 440 horses stabled in the barns leased from track owner Churchill Downs Inc. to The Stronach Group – which owns and operates Gulfstream Park racetrack & casino eight miles to the east – and at least a couple of hundred horses in the “occupied zone,” a fenced-in area that by contract was to be vacated by midnight, Dec. 31. Anyone trespassing in that section of the stable is subject to prosecution for committing a felony, according to warning signs.
No one is certain how long “business as usual” will continue for those in the fenced off section of the stables.
UPDATE: On Friday, Jan. 2, Jim Freer reported for Bloodhorse.com that the horsemen inside the fenced-in section of the Calder stables were told they have one day to remove their horses and vacate the area. Access to training was cut off to horses inside the “occupied zone,” he reported.
On Dec. 31, Phil Combest, president of the Florida Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, gave me a tour of the stable and expressed frustration – frustration you could see on the faces of people everywhere on the Calder backstretch. Many grooms and stablehands are being forced to move out of their living quarters, too, and don’t know where they’ll sleep.
There were makeshift tents with horses moving into 10-by-10-foot stalls in an area controlled by The Stronach Group under the lease agreement. Erected on an asphalt parking lot, the tents and temporary stalls had rubber mats underneath the bedding, but they were nowhere near as suitable for an 1,100-pound Thoroughbred as the hundreds of empty stalls in deserted barns just steps away. There aren’t enough of these temporary stalls, either: Combest said 165 of them would still leave several hundred horses with nowhere to go.
Workers cleared out the recreation hall/canteen inside the occupied zone and many prepared to vacate their dormitories at a moment’s notice.
“The horses have to eat and need someone here to take care of them,” said one stablehand helping move items out of the recreation hall. “What are we supposed to do?”
Combest and others believed this day would never come, that a temporary deal would be worked out between executives for Churchill Downs and The Stronach Group to keep the stable area open until at least April 1, when a large number of horses return north to Kentucky, New York and elsewhere. Nearly all of the horses inside the occupied zone represent small stables that race year-round in South Florida.
“We were assured by Gulfstream Park management there would be no problem,” Combest said, “until about 10 days ago.” That’s when eviction notices were posted, saying, effective Jan. 1, 2015, anyone inside the fenced-in stable area would be considered a trespasser and prosecuted for committing a felony.
Expectations for an extension might have been a naïve belief, given the rancor that ensued when Gulfstream Park began racing head-to-head against Calder in 2013 during its traditional summer and fall dates. Gulfstream won that battle and when CDI officials agreed to give up operating Calder as a racetrack and allow the Stronach Group to control 100 percent of the Thoroughbred dates in South Florida, there were two agreements, according to Combest. The first, he said, involved the two tracks and the FHBPA, dealing with racing dates at Gulfstream Park and the rebranded Gulfstream Park West (formerly Calder), revenue from the Calder Casino and purses. Combest said the other was a two-party agreement between CDI and Gulfstream regarding the backstretch, only a portion of which was to remain open beyond Dec. 31, 2014. “I don’t know all the details of that contract,” he said.
That’s not the way Churchill Downs officials interpret the matter.
“Phil Combest and other members of the Florida HBPA were personally involved in the negotiations between Churchill Downs, The Stronach Group and the Florida HBPA in which the parties specifically agreed to a six-month transition period, ending on Dec. 31, allowing adequate time for any remaining horsemen in Calder’s stable area to find alternative stabling,” Courtney Norris, CDI’s director of corporate communications, said in an emailed statement.
“Instead of managing a process to find alternative stabling during the transition period, the number of horses significantly increased during this period following the July 1, 2014, effective date of the agreement.
“Since learning of these issues in December, Calder has taken steps to provide accurate information directly to horsemen stabled at Calder and have attempted to help identify alternative stabling locations. These efforts have been continuously hampered,” the statement continued.
“Had the Florida HBPA and Gulfstream worked collaboratively throughout the transition period, a safe and reasonable solution for alternative stabling could have easily been achieved. This is a critical aspect of the deal that all of the parties reached in order to save year-round racing in South Florida.”
Combest said the FHBPA has been trying to find alternate stabling for weeks but has not been successful. At one point last month, he said, Gulfstream Park officials got approval from Calder executive John Marshall to put up five large tents that would have housed 400 horses temporarily. Water and electricity was run to the area where the tents were going up at the end of an employee parking lot near the stable gate. Three of the tents were erected with the other two staked out and set to go. Then, Combest said, he suspects Marshall got word from CDI’s home office in Kentucky to take them down because they were on a portion of the property shared by the two racetrack companies.
“He said, ‘What are those tents doing there?’ and denied ever saying he gave approval for them to go up,” Combest said. The tents and material were disassembled and removed, though one remained standing on Dec. 31.
Marshall was not at his office Thursday, a Calder officials said, and did not reply to a request for comment.
“Calder has allowed a series of temporary tented barns to be built by Gulfstream in an authorized area that is safe for horses and located within a section of Calder’s stable area currently under Gulfstream’s control,” CDI spokesperson Norris said. “However, the other temporary tents that were attempted to be built, without notifying Calder, in an open and unrestricted employee parking lot are not a viable solution and pose significant legal, liability and other serious concerns.”
One of Combest’s greatest frustrations is that there appears to be no project in the works for CDI to develop the stable area and that it will sit empty and unused, just like the training track Calder officials shut down on July 1 when the agreement was signed.
“We couldn’t find any applications for permits of any kind,” Combest said. “There’s been all kinds of rumors about what they might do, but we’ve heard nothing for sure.”
Norris would not comment on whether there are immediate clearing or development plans for the fenced-off section of the stable area. “We have been working towards a Jan. 1 timeline to begin executing our long-term development plan since the contract became effective,” she said.
Meanwhile, for the horses and humans living in the occupied zone of the Calder backstretch, it’s day to day. For them, the new year brought new uncertainty.
A temporary tent (above) is substituting for the vacated barns in the fenced off Calder stable area
