There will be racing this fall at Santa Anita after all.
The Oak Tree meeting - held at Santa Anita for the last 41 years - is staying at the Arcadia, Calif., track for this year.
Frank Stronach, chairman of MI Developments, which owns the track, relented near the end of the California Horse Racing Board's meeting Tuesday after initially resisting efforts by board members to get him to reconsider the canceling of Oak Tree's lease.
Stronach abruptly changed his mind after comments made by his friend and thoroughbred owner Mace Siegel.
``I'm here to find solutions,'' Stronach said. ``I don't want to be a hardliner. I would commit that we would have it (Oak Tree) this year, but then we would not have it anymore. I have no problem that we have the meeting here yet.''
MI Developments voided its lease with Oak Tree in May, leaving the location of the fall meet up in the air. The Canadian company acquired Santa Anita from Magna Entertainment Corp. in April as part of a reorganization plan approved by a Delaware bankruptcy court.
Oak Tree is a not-for-profit organization whose lease with Santa Anita was to have run through 2016. Oak Tree officials had been discussing moving their meet to Hollywood Park or Del Mar.
``In the long run, it's better for us to run this year at Santa Anita,'' said Sherwood Chillingworth, Oak Tree's director and executive vice president.
Earlier in the meeting at Hollywood Park, Stronach said the Oak Tree meet ``is not a good arrangement for our long-term plans.''
``In the long run, we have to cut if off someplace. We don't intend to have anymore a tenant in our house.''
Stronach also said that Santa Anita will continue to use its synthetic Pro-Ride surface through the spring of 2011 before making a change. He said he's been looking for ``the most perfect surface'' and he believes he has found it.
Santa Anita's current surface, although considered safe, is defective and failed to drain properly on several racing days during last winter's meet and in 2008.
