California Court of Appeal

In plaintiff's petition for a writ of mandate seeking to compel the California Horse Racing Board (Board) to disqualify a horse from the 2007 Del Mar Derby and redistribute his earnings or to convene a hearing to determine the rights to the Derby purse, trial court's grant of the petition is reversed and remanded where: 1) because the plaintiff could have filed its protest with the Stewards under Rule 1757, but failed to do so, the Board had no regulatory duty to grant it a hearing; 2) trial court's conclusion that a protest need not first be presented to the Stewards in cases such as this, which involve a change in the distribution of a purse, is not supported by the plain language of the statute or the Board's regulations, and it creates an exception that would swallow the rule that protests must first be presented to the Stewards.

Appellate Information

• Decided 11/08/2010
• Published 11/08/2010

Judges

• ROTHSCHILD

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Edmund G. Brown Jr., Neil Papiano