horse racing was not held last year during the Big Fresno Fair<\/a> due to animal safety concerns, the rising operational costs and dwindling purse prizes.<\/p>\n\u201cFor generations, live horse racing has been an important part of Fresno\u2019s story,\u201d Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer said in a news release. \u201cIt brings our community together, supports local businesses, and adds to the events and traditions that make our city special.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur residents have missed horse racing, and I know they will look forward to experiencing what harness racing is all about this December.\u201d<\/p>\n
Multiple harness races in Fresno are expected to provide additional wagering opportunities for the community, as well as projects to deliver \u201csignificant economic benefits to the Fairgrounds and great Fresno region,\u201d according to The Big Fresno Fair.<\/p>\n
Races will be broadcast worldwide via satellite, which is expected to strengthen the Fair\u2019s satellite wagering program.<\/p>\n
Though live horse racing has been associated with the Big Fresno Fair for more than 120 years, harness racing hasn\u2019t been held in Fresno for roughly 100 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cA big shoutout to our Fresno fair board and team for bringing horse racing back to the fair,\u201d Fresno County Board Supervisor Luis Chavez wrote on social media. \u201cWe will be the state capital for harness horse racing at our track, where satellite waging and entertainment will be available again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will be a much welcomed event as we work towards bringing all horse racing back to the fair. … The chariots of Fresno will race again!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Horse racing is returning to Fresno. But it\u2019ll be in a different form than the traditional format. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[8502,112,114,113,75502,8506,75501],"class_list":["post-153269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-california-horse-racing-board","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-harness-racing","tag-horse-racing","tag-the-big-fresno-fair"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}