"Given the events of the past 10 months, it is difficult to fix the blame for the demise of the Oak Tree Racing Association as an operator of a major California Thoroughbred meet. They were getting it from all sides. After 42 years of honorable service and charitable contributions to the sport, you would think job security would have been the least of Oak Tree’s worries. But now, as a result of actions taken on Thursday by the California Horse Racing Board, there will be no Oak Tree meet in 2011."

"Executives from the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, Keeneland Association, New York Racing Association, and Oak Tree Racing Association met in late September in Lexington to discuss the launch of an advance-deposit wagering (ADW) site. The initial concept is the site would return a higher percentage of money from handle to tracks and horsemen, in the form of purses; and possibly to players, in the form of rebates; by eliminating the percentage of handle that other ADWs currently retain."

"There was an on-track crowd of 4,279 Thursday night for the opening of the 22-day Oak Tree meeting at Hollywood Park, which is considered a disappointment in the first experiment trying night racing during autumn.... Last year, 17,239 attended Oak Tree's opening day at Santa Anita.... There also was a sizable drop in handle compared to last year. Hollywood Park's total handle was $4,524,976 compared to $7,632,645 last year at Santa Anita.

"We’ve got a facility Breeders’ Cup would love. It’s got acres and acres of skyboxes and luxury suites and a big director’s room. It would be easy to adapt this place to tents and things like that. We’ve got more hotel rooms around here than perhaps any track in the country." Also: "As long as the statistics are showing how much safer it is than dirt, we’d be foolish to move to dirt."

"Friday's announcement occurred two days after Oak Tree and Del Mar officials met to discuss a possible relocation of the Oak Tree meeting to that San Diego County track in 2011. The meeting ended with Del Mar chief executive Joe Harper saying that the two sides wanted to incorporate the horsemen and racing board in the conversations before finalizing plans."

"There's some things we have to work out down here," Harper said. "We want to do it. They want to come, but there's some issues we have to be clear on." Environmental issues, housing among the things to be worked out.

"A Magna official speaking on condition of anonymity said the California Horse Racing Board has been pushing Oak Tree to move out of Santa Anita as punishment for Magna's opposition to a bill in the state Legislature that would legalize exchange betting."

MID tells BH that Oak Tree can't be staged this year because the track needs a new surface. Also: "[Chillingworth] said company representatives have made it clear they would also want to take any future Breeders' Cup dates. 'We would run the [Oak Tree] meet and they would run the Breeders' Cup,' Chillingworth said."

"To stay at Santa Anita, Oak Tree was asked to loan $10 million to MID, mostly for yet another new surface, and MID wouldn't have to pay on the principal for two years. Other new wrinkles would have required Oak Tree to pay heavily for capital improvements (such as those rat-infested barns that Stronach kept promising to replace), and sacrifice revenue of approximately $1 million if it hosted the Breeders' Cup again. In other words, Stronach gave Chillingingworth an offer that he couldn't approve."