As the willdfires continue to ravage the Greater Los Angeles area, Jay Hovdey takes stock of the toll on the racing community
The wind was picking up again, whipping in from the east. It was one of those “hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and skin itch,” as described by Raymond Chandler in a short story from nearly a century ago. A short story called Red Wind.
Consignors and agents at Fairplex Park in Pomona leaned into the wind and did their best to evaluate the collection of Thoroughbreds catalogued for the Jan. 21 sale, two days hence. Andy Havens, whose Havens Bloodstock Agency has been an industry mainstay for decades, was among them.
“They were really violent winds,” Havens said. “You can’t show horses in wind like that. They hate it, because it never stops.”
Havens (right) earned his frustration. Those same winds fanned the flames that burned his home to the ground the previous week in the disastrous Eaton Fire that ignited Jan. 7 to ravage the community of Altadena and parts of neighboring towns, a few miles to the northwest of Santa Anita Park.
The Havens home was one of more than 7,000 structures destroyed in the Eaton Fire, while across town in western Los Angeles, another 6,600 homes and businesses were lost in the Palisades Fire that burned all the way to the Pacific shoreline.
Californians in general have become numb to the threat of wildfires over the last decades, as weather systems swing between extended periods of drought and sudden, severe rainstorms. The storms promote the growth of vegetation, especially in remote areas, which then dries to a tinder crisp during drought, just waiting for any kind of a spark and a facilitating breeze.
That is what happened in December 2017, when the Lilac Fire of north San Diego County swept through part of the San Luis Rey Downs Training Center, near the town of Bonsall. Eight barns were destroyed and 46 horses lost their lives, while most of the rest were evacuated to Del Mar Racetrack during a nightmare that still brings shudders to those involved.
Little wonder, then, that those terrible memories kicked in the afternoon of Jan. 21 when a brushfire erupted a few miles east of the training center, near Interstate 15.
High winds began pushing the fire westward, prompting officials to issue evacuation orders, either mandatory or recommended. In a tone-deaf display of insensitivity, officials decided to call the outbreak the Lilac Fire, beginning near Lilac Road, as it did its predecessor.
‘Oh no, here we go again …’
“I thought, ‘Oh no, here we go again,’” said Peter Miller, a leading California trainer who stables his main string at San Luis Rey. “All last week, I could not watch the TV coverage of the fires up in LA. It brought back too many terrible memories. Call
it PTSD, I guess.”
In the escape from a wind-driven wildfire, there really is no such thing as an abundance of caution. The fire, if it wants you, will always win. The horses and people at San Luis Rey could have held their ground and sweated things out, but it was hardly worth the risk. Even though steps had been taken since 2017 to fireproof the property as much as possible, there were no guarantees when the red wind was in play. Accordingly, the 275 horses were loaded on a procession of vans and removed to stalls in the empty backstretch at Del Mar.
The good news is that the Lilac Fire of 2025 was nowhere nearly as severe as its namesake. It did its business on mostly isolated ground, eventually burning only 85 acres and damaging four structures. By the following morning, it was 90 per cent contained, allowing horses to be returned to San Luis Rey Downs later that day.
Still, the traumatic effects of the previous weeks lingered. It seemed as if everyone in the Southern California racing community knew someone tragically impacted by the Eaton Fire, which caused 17 deaths and burned 14,000 acres worth of hillsides, canyons, and neighborhoods … like Rubio Street in Altadena.
‘I got out with my dog and my shoes’
“I bought the house there 15 years ago,” said Havens, who saw the flames bearing down from nearby Eaton Canyon. “We’ve had to evacuate several times through the years. You get these winds, and the power goes out, but you leave not thinking your house will burn down. I got out with my dog and my shoes, and whatever I was wearing.”
That dog is Danny, a four-year-old French Mastiff acquired by Havens as a rescue. A friend in Pomona took them in, while Havens tries to figure out what’s next.
In the racing world, the Eaton Fire limited training and halted racedays at Santa Anita, where an impromptu resource center popped up in the racetrack parking lot. Volunteers sorted through donations of food, personal goods, and clothing that were distributed to many of the tens of thousands displaced by the disaster.
Hotels in the densely populated San Gabriel Valley region were filled to capacity, schools were closed, and lives were put on hold, dangling at the mercy of emergency services, government assistance, and insurance red tape.
As the Eaton Fire continued to burn into the following week, Havens traveled to Kentucky for the Keeneland January sale, where he was confronted by sub-freezing conditions that mocked the fiery conflagration back home that would have turned his winter wardrobe to ash.
Kind souls provided him with warm clothing to survive the sessions, then it was back to California to be greeted by more wind, and the same grim reality faced by so many.
“My brain has mercifully protected me from the magnitude of this thing,” Havens said. “But every day it all comes back to me, usually about 2.30am in the morning.
‘Only four houses left standing’
“They finally let me up there yesterday, and the rubble is just unbelievable,” he added. “I think there were only four houses left standing on my street.”
Walking through the remains of his home and gardens, Havens found a handful of items that survived, though no furniture, no computer, no pictures once hanging on walls now in ruins.
“I have a life-size statue of a Galapagos tortoise, which is just beautiful, and a bunch of little rabbit statues around it,” he said. “They were all fine.
“I also have a three-quarter size statue of a gargoyle of Notre Dame,” Havens added. “He was all right.”
As were several smaller gargoyle statues scattered about.
“The gargoyle, you know, is the protector of the soul,” Havens said. “So there you go. They defended my soul, but they weren’t able to defend my house.”
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