Long-time California resident and Fox News contributor Caitlyn Jenner predicts that there will be a “change” in thinking across the state after the way leadership handled the wildfires still affecting parts of Los Angeles County.
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE WATER DROPS IN CALIFORNIA DURING WILDFIRES
Jenner, who said she has lived in California since 1973, recalled the first time she saw the state’s “Welcome to California, the Golden State” sign on Highway 82.
“Boy, have I seen this state decline over the years. We’re not gold, we’re not silver, we’re not bronze. We don’t even make the finals anymore,” Jenner told “The Story,” arguing that the state’s decline is because of the politicians running it.
The former 2021 Republican recall election candidate argued that the details emerging from how officials failed to prepare for the wildfires are going to shine a “bright light” on California’s “weaknesses.”
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California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass tour the downtown business district of Pacific Palisades as the Palisades Fire continues to burn on January 8, 2025 in Los Angeles, California(Eric Thayer/Getty Images)
“Light is good because it’s a disinfectant. I mean, we have so many issues here, mostly with the politicians,” said Jenner, likening the politician’s responses to problems like a game of “whack-a-mole.”
“You know that game when you play, when you have the mole and you have the board in front of you and the head pops up, you got a hammer, and you bang it down? And then another one comes up over here, and you bang it down,” she described.
FILMMAKER CALLS OUT LA COUNTY’S ‘USELESS’ MANAGEMENT OVER WILDFIRE THAT DESTROYED PEOPLE’S LIVES
“That’s what they do. Soon as the problem comes up, then they try to do what they can do to fix it. Instead of being on the offensive a year before the fires,” Jenner further explained her analogy.
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Jenner criticized Gov. Gavin Newsom’s response to the wildfires, highlighting how she has had properties affected by several fires over the years and that they happen “all the time.”
“This is devastating stuff. And they’re not on the offense,” said Jenner, acknowledging the massive winds that contributed to the level of devastation from the flames.
Malibu, CA – January 08: Beachfront homes are devastated by the Palisades fire on PCH on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025 in Malibu, CA.(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Outside of the unusually windy conditions, California has been dealing with a water infrastructure problem, which Jenner highlighted.
“Certainly in the 60s, we had the California aqueduct come through. The greatest project in history [for] water in California. Since then, we’ve been run by liberal Democrats and we just get less and less. And it’s just, it’s a shame because there are a lot of things you can do, and they just have their priorities in the wrong spot,” she said.
California suffers from an outdated water reserves system that was incapable of storing all the water from the record rainfall last year. Without the reservoirs providing adequate storage, much of the rain water had to be dumped into the ocean.
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Jenner detailed how she believes that California has and will continue to swing more Republican after the wildfire mismanagement in L.A. and President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory.
“What [Trump] did to this state, if you looked at over the last few elections, the amount of blue which was on our state, it was half the state. Now it’s about a third,” said Jenner, detailing how most of the California blue zones are in the major metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.
“I hope the people of California can really change their thinking. And I think what’s happening [with] this fire is going to change their thinking. It’s things like this that have to happen,” said Jenner, explaining how California as a whole is controlled by Democrats.
“They control the money. They control the votes. They control the unions. And to me, the whole state is like a big scam,” she said.
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Kira Mautone is an Associate Editor with Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to kira.mautone@fox.com.
A $10,000 reward is being offered for any information that helps find 13-year-old Sa’Wade Birdinground. She went missing from her grandparents’ home in Montana last October.
Sa’Wade was last seen on the night of October 6, 2024, at her grandparents’ house on the Crow Indian Reservation in Garryowen, Montana.(Federal Bureau of Investigation)
The FBI’s Salt Lake City office is offering $5,000, and the Crow Tribe, which Sa’Wade belongs to, is giving another $5,000.
After a press conference on Friday, people from the community walked together and released red balloons at Little Big Horn College. This was a way to show their hope and support to bring Sa’Wade back home, according to Yellowstone Public Radio.
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Sa’Wade’s case is part of a bigger problem in the U.S.—many Indigenous people, especially women and girls, go missing or are murdered. In states like Montana, where there are big Native communities, this happens more often.
The group Native Hope says Indigenous women are killed at a rate 10 times higher than other women who live on reservations. Murder is the third top cause of death for Native women.
The Department of Justice has a program called “Operation Not Forgotten” that tries to help by giving more support to investigate these cases and fix the unfair treatment Native people often face.
Sa’Wade was last seen on….
Sa’Wade was last seen on the night of October 6, 2024, at her grandparents’ house on the Crow Indian Reservation in Garryowen, Montana. She hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
The reservation is about 65 miles southeast of Billings. It’s near where Sitting Bull’s camp used to be and close to the Little Bighorn River. Long ago, the area was used by Plains Indian tribes for summer hunting, and one of the biggest Native gatherings in North America happened there.
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At the time she went missing, Sa’Wade was around 5’4” to 5’5” tall, weighed between 130–140 pounds, had curly brown hair and brown eyes. She often wore an elk tooth necklace.
That night, she was wearing a black hoodie with mushrooms on it, an anime T-shirt, basketball shorts, and purple slip-on Skechers. She might also have had a black and purple Adidas backpack, according to the FBI.
So far, searches by the FBI, Bureau of Indian Affairs, local police, the Montana National Guard, and community volunteers haven’t found any solid leads or sightings, local news station KTVQ reported.
Officials say this case stands out because of Sa’Wade’s young age and the situation around her disappearance. They also pointed out that many Native families go through this every year, with loved ones going missing and not enough answers.
The world’s most popular TikToker was detained in Nevada by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Friday. After a social media influencer broke the news on X that Khaby Lame had been detained by ICE, the agency confirmed the news in a statement to AFP and Men’s Journal. “US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Seringe Khabane Lame, 25, a citizen of Italy, June 6, at the Harry Reid International Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada for immigration violations,” it reads. “Lame entered the United States April 30 and overstayed the terms of his visa. Lame was granted voluntary departure June 6 and has since departed the US.”
Lame, who shot to fame making silent comedy videos on TikTok after losing his job at a factory in Italy amid the COVID-19 pandemic, has posted on both TikTok and Instagram since his brief detention, though he did not address the situation. It’s not clear where he traveled after leaving Las Vegas. The X influencer who first reported news of Lame’s detention claims to be the person who reported him to authorities. He also posted, “If you discover any illegal aliens or illegal activity, contact ICE’s Tip Line.” Lame has more than 162 million followers on TikTok. (More Immigration and Customs Enforcement stories.)
At his home just 5 miles from the recently razed grandstand of the former horse racing track southwest of Santa Fe, Tony Martinez’s mind wandered into the past.
He recalled the names of horses and jockeys from the 1970s — the brigade of swift thoroughbreds raising dust as the finish line approached. Much like the jubilant shouts sweeping through the crowds, they are just memories now, as is The Downs at Santa Fe.
The faded grandstand has been demolished, toppled in the last few weeks to make way for redevelopment plans by Pojoaque Pueblo, which purchased the struggling track in the 1990s and hoped to put it on the map with big races and, later, a “racino” with slot machines that could compete with tribal casinos — including its own operations. Those plans never came to fruition.
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The pueblo secured $4 million in state legislative capital outlay this year and $8 million last year to help move forward with new plans for the 320-acre site at 27475 W. Frontage Road just off Interstate 25.
Pueblo officials did not respond to inquiries last week about the project, though a preliminary development plan obtained by The New Mexican indicates a hotel and various types of housing could be in the works, as well as commercial space.
Martinez, a former horse trainer, now 83, is among many longtime patrons who lament The Downs at Santa Fe’s demise and now its disappearance.
“We had some really, really good times at The Downs,” Martinez said. “We really, really miss it. It just gets into your blood.”
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Santa Fe horse trainer and racing enthusiast Tony Martinez talks about his days working at The Downs at in the 1970s with his wife, Lou Martinez. A former horse trainer, the 83-year-old Tony Martinez has almost perfect recall for races run at The Downs.
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Jim Weber/The New Mexican
‘A sentimental deal’
The towering and long-lonely grandstand at The Downs was a landmark that loomed off I-25 since the early 1970s. Suddenly, almost overnight, it is gone, stirring memories for locals, some of whom stopped in recent weeks to take photographs of the stadium buckling under the pressure of excavators.
It served for a couple of decades as a fixture of entertainment and gambling during its heyday in Northern New Mexico until it closed in the late 1990s, then lay mostly dormant for more than 25 years.
As a music venue, The Downs drew top-dollar musicians, including the Grateful Dead — with fans recalling legendary performances there in 1982 and ’83 — and country star Roger Miller, known for his 1965 hit “King of the Road.”
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Plans to revive horse racing at The Downs in the 2000s never took hold, though Pojoaque Pueblo made preparations, smoothing out a massive pile of manure that had angered neighbors and restricted use of the property.
Workmen began screening trash out of the pile in 2008 and spreading manure 4 to 5 inches thick across a 40-acre parcel on the property. The manure was tilled into the soil and native grasses were planted over it.
The site has since hosted soccer matches, flea markets, movie nights, music shows — one festival that epically fizzled — and a fall fest with pumpkin carving and a costume parade. Some 800 people gathered for the Ultimate Gladiator Dash, an extreme sports challenge, in 2014, the same year an equestrian event was staged there — but not for racing. Horses and riders tested their skills in dressage, show jumping and cross-country jumping competitions.
Mostly, The Downs has been empty.
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The Downs at Santa Fe circa 1976. Racetrack anticipation burned hot in Santa Fe when the track opened in 1971: So popular was The Downs, a $5.5 million, 1-mile oval track, that on its opening day in June a crowd of 11,000 people lured to the events created traffic jams.
New Mexican archive photo
Members of the horse racing industry in New Mexico cite a suite of reasons why operating venues like The Downs has proved challenging amid increasingly high competition for the “gambling dollar” in the Land of Enchantment.
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The racing industry has struggled nationally in recent decades amid what is generally perceived as a dip in interest; slot machines and gambling are keeping many racetracks — which double as “racinos” — afloat.
These days, Martinez and his wife travel to The Downs Racetrack & Casino at Expo New Mexico in Albuquerque to play the horses there, but the experience isn’t the same as what they remember decades ago at their hometown track: Times have changed, and they no longer see people they know.
J.J. Gonzales, another Northern New Mexican involved in the industry who fondly recalls The Downs at Santa Fe, enjoyed a storied career in the sport, winning the All American Futurity — considered to be quarter horse racing’s biggest event — at Ruidoso Downs Racetrack & Casino in 2003.
Once a boy with a talent, he became a licensed jockey at age 16, and he credits Santa Fe with launching his career in the 1990s.
“I won my first race there, and that’s always a sentimental deal right there,” said Gonzales, a native of the community of Sena in San Miguel County. “That sticks to you pretty hard.”
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Don Cook, now president of racing at The Downs Racetrack & Casino in Albuquerque, worked at the local Downs from 1988 until it closed in the 1990s. While in Santa Fe, he did about everything there is to do at a track: He was a clocker, a placing judge, a stall superintendent, a director of security.
Don Cook, now president of racing at The Downs Racetrack & Casino in Albuquerque, did about everything there is to do at The Downs at Santa Fe during his tenure there, working as a clocker, placing judge, stall superintendent and director of security.
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Jim Weber/The New Mexican
It’s a shame the track closed because it had ample potential and upside, he said.
“It was nicknamed the Saratoga of the West,” Cook said, referring to the famed racetrack in New York state.
“It had a nice, beautiful grass infield, a great view of the mountains. It was a shame it got closed down, but things happen.”
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Out of the gates hot
Racetrack anticipation burned hot in Santa Fe in 1971. On opening day in June, a crowd of 11,000 people turned out at the $5.5 million, 1-mile oval track, creating traffic jams.
Stabling facilities were unable to accommodate the volume of horses streaming into Santa Fe, so ran the reports in late May that year.
Ismael “Izzy” Trejo, executive director of the New Mexico Racing Commission, grew up around the track; his father was a horse trainer. He recalled the feeling of euphoria as a child when jockeys gave him their goggles following races.
But the racetrack, run by a company called Santa Fe Racing, began to experience financial difficulties even in its early years — the 1976 racing season was in doubt for a time when debts exceeded $3.5 million, according to reports in The Santa Fe New Mexican.
The Pueblo of Pojoaque acquired the property in the mid-1990s and had big plans to continue horse racing. With events such as the Indian Nations Futurity Cup under the pueblo’s ownership, there was every indication the struggling racetrack could still become a significant place for the sport in the Southwest, Trejo said.
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Racing at The Downs in September 1982. The racetrack, run by a company called Santa Fe Racing, began to experience financial difficulties even in its early years — doubt was cast on the 1976 racing season, with debts exceeding $3.5 million, according to reports in The Santa Fe New Mexican.
New Mexican archive photo
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In 1997, track officials hoped the Indian Nations Futurity Cup would shower national prestige on Santa Fe, The New Mexican reported. A Pojoaque Pueblo official told a reporter at the time the goal was for the race to put The Downs at Santa Fe back on the map, with an estimated purse of up to $600,000.
“But I think they realized it’s hard to run a racetrack,” Trejo said. “It’s costly. You have to have a lot of employees — assistant starters, jockey valets, racing office staff, stewards, concessionaires, track maintenance people, mutual tellers. You have a whole army.”
The pueblo closed the track in the late ’90s after a few years of ownership, citing millions of dollars in losses.
Cook said, in his opinion, the closure of The Downs at Santa Fe had more to do with a dispute over the number of race days than anything else — with the racers wanting more.
“It was actually closed down over the amount of races the horsemen wanted to run and the racetrack wanted to recall. From what I can recall, it was over one day,” Cook said. “In my opinion, that track would still be there if there wasn’t a fight over a race day.”
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Making name in Santa Fe
While the racetrack had its ups and downs in its two decades of operation, it allowed trainers and jockeys in the area to get a strong start on their careers.
Two prominent photographs of J.J. Gonzales appeared side by side in The New Mexican in 1993. Then 16, the young jockey was already turning heads in the sport.
One image shows him riding a quarter horse named Sapello Kid at The Downs at Santa Fe. In the other, he is shown stroking another fleet-footed equine in the barns where his father, James Gonzales Sr., was a trainer.
Ten years later, he would win the All American Futurity in Ruidoso.
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Santa Fe horse trainer and racing enthusiast Tony Martinez goes through his scrapbook of winners at The Downs last week. “We had some really, really good times at The Downs,” Martinez said. “We really, really miss it. It just gets into your blood.”
Jim Weber/The New Mexican
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About a year after he retired as a jockey in 2008, he began training horses. Now Gonzales and his sons operate a successful stable based in El Paso, known as the Gonzales Racing Stable, and compete in races around the Southwest, including in Oklahoma City and Dallas.
The Downs in the City Different was where many horsemen, especially those from the region, made their name.
“It started right there in Santa Fe,” Gonzales said. “For me, that was a big part of my life growing up.”
Gambling rise takes toll
Meanwhile, the rise of tribal gambling operations in the state in the 1990s created difficulties for New Mexico’s horse racing industry. In 1995, then-Gov. Gary Johnson began signing compacts with various pueblos and tribes, allowing them to open casinos.
When Johnson signed those compacts, “he signed a death knell for racing in this state,” Ken Newton, the former Downs at Santa Fe owner, once told The New Mexican. “Racing can’t compete, even with video slots, against full-bore casino gaming,” he said at the time.
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Newton, who died in 2015, sold his interest in Santa Fe Racing to the six other stockholders in 1996; later that year, they sold it to Pojoaque Pueblo.
The casinos would continue to pose challenges for the horse racing industry, which fought for two years for a 1997 law allowing slot machines at up to six racetracks in the state.
Steven Hollahan at The Downs in 1982.
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New Mexican archive photo
Casino operations at five tracks — now known as racinos — help subsidize the racing, Trejo noted.
“The competition for the gambling dollar has gotten fierce,” he said.
There were attempts to get a racino license for the track in Santa Fe.
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Pojoaque Pueblo sought in 2008 to convince the Racing Commission The Downs at Santa Fe would be the best place to locate what was expected to be the state’s sixth and final racino for at least the next 33 years.
It was one of three in the running.
However, an operator in Raton won the license based on a little-known statute designed to regulate competition between neighboring racetracks — The Downs at Santa Fe was too close, within 80 miles, of the Albuquerque track.
The Racing Commission later revoked the Raton license after the project collapsed following repeated construction delays and persistent questions about its financing, The New Mexican reported in 2018, when the Racing Commission was again considering issuing a sixth racino license. The process faced delays, and a new license was never issued.
A former Pojoaque Pueblo governor had told The New Mexican in 2008 The Downs at Santa Fe was not profitable without slot machine revenue to subsidize the horse racing operation.
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Supporting this statement, a 2008 economic impact study of southeastern New Mexico’s Zia Park Racetrack, which opened in 2005 in Hobbs, found casino revenues were the primary source of income for racetracks in the state.
Gamblers’ slot machine losses enrich purses in horse races, according to the study, conducted by the New Mexico Racing Commission.
Competing with casinos
The horse racing industry relies heavily on a pari-mutuel system, which combines bets from racetracks and casinos. It has been in place in New Mexico for more than a quarter-century and has become a significant source of revenue.
New Mexico commercial casinos, or racinos, face considerable competition from the state’s 21 tribal casinos, according to the American Gaming Association, with tribal casinos in the state generating $835 million in casino gaming revenue in fiscal year 2023, an increase of 4.6% from 2022.
“Unlike the state’s racinos, tribal casinos are permitted to offer table games and sports betting in addition to electronic gaming devices,” states a 2024 report from the association about New Mexico.
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Maintenance workers grade the track as trainers start to arrive at The Downs Racetrack & Casino last week. The Albuquerque track is one of five “racinos” in the state — Ruidoso Downs Race Track and Casino, Zia Park Casino Hotel & Racetrack in Hobbs, Sunland Park Racetrack & Casino and Sunray Park & Casino in Farmington.
Jim Weber/The New Mexican
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Cook, who noted there are few horse tracks in the nation operating without slot machines, highlighted some of the competition in the Albuquerque metropolitan area when it comes to gambling. He said The Downs there competes with an array of casinos on tribal land within a half-hour drive, including Sandia Casino and Isleta Casino.
“There are so many other forms of gambling now that were not around in the ’70s and ’80s,” Cook said.
He thinks only a couple of racetracks in the state would be able to survive without casinos attached — the Ruidoso Downs and The Downs Racetrack & Casino in Albuquerque.
The state has three other racinos aside from those in Ruidoso and Albuquerque: Zia Park Casino Hotel & Racetrack in Hobbs, Sunland Park Racetrack & Casino and Sunray Park & Casino in Farmington.
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Trejo said costs associated with the sport have jumped.
“They used to call it the sport of kings, and the amount of cost that the racetracks and the horsemen have to endure just to enjoy the entertainment of horse racing, it’s very expensive now,” Trejo said.
“It’s going full circle to where the common man is having difficulty sustaining in this industry,” he added, “and it’s becoming the sport of kings again — only the wealthy can prevail.”
