California racing commissioners unanimously elected David Israel their new chairman and elected Chuck Winner vice chairman Thursday during the regular meeting of the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB).
Chairman Israel, who served as vice chairman for four years, immediately announced a new emphasis on standing, working committees of the Board that will regularly convene to thoroughly discuss and take positions on various matters before they are placed on Board agendas for consideration by the entire membership. To that end, Chairman Israel and Vice Chairman Winner later released a revised list of committee assignments, as follows:
- Pari-mutuel, ADW, and Simulcast Committee: Richard Rosenberg, chair; Jesse Choper, member; Steve Beneto, alternate member
- Legislative, Legal, and Regulations Committee: Jesse Choper, chair; Richard Rosenberg, member; Steve Beneto, alternate member
- Medication and Track Safety Committee: Bo Derek, chair; Chuck Winner, member; David Israel, alternate member
- Budget, Finance, and Audit Committee: Steve Beneto, chair; second member to be new commissioner when appointed by the Governor; Richard Rosenberg, alternate member
- Stewards Committee: David Israel, chair; Chuck Winner, member; alternate member to be new commissioner when appointed by the Governor
- Jockey and Driver Welfare Committee: Chuck Winner, chair; Bo Derek, member; David Israel, alternate member
Chairman Israel was appointed to the CHRB by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on July 9, 2008, and then reappointed by Governor Schwarzenegger in March 2010 to a term that expires January 1, 2014.
He was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger to the board of directors of the California Science Center in 2005. Appointed by the governor, he served as a president and a member of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission from 2005 to 2012. He served three years on the board of directors of the California Governor's and First Lady's Conference on Women.
He has been writer and producer of many television series and movies, including "Midnight Caller," "The Untouchables," "Tremors," "Turks," "Fast Copy," "Crimes of the Century," “Bay City Blues,” “Jake Lassiter: Justice on the Bayou,” "The Port Chicago Mutiny," "Pandora's Clock," "House of Frankenstein," "Y2K," and "Monday Night Football.” He served as Director, Office of the President, Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, in 1984 under Peter V. Ueberroth. He is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. He was a reporter and syndicated columnist for the Chicago Daily News, Washington Star, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Herald Examiner. His writing has also been published by Sports Illustrated, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Playboy, Sport, California, the Huffington Post, and in the anthology "Lasting Yankee Stadium Memories.”
As a sports columnist, he often wrote about horse racing, and covered the Triple Crown campaigns of Seattle Slew and Affirmed.
He is married and lives in Los Angeles.
Vice Chairman Winner was appointed to the CHRB by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. on April 9, 2012, to a term that expires July 26, 2015.
In 1975, he founded Winner & Associates, LLC, of Los Angeles, one of the premier public policy and corporate branding, advertising, and public relations companies in the country, providing strategic, crisis, marketing and government relations communications services to a wide range of Fortune 500 corporations, trade associations, law firms and government organizations. He also created Winner & Mandabach Campaigns, the leading ballot measure campaign firm in the U.S. with a 90 per cent success record in over 250 campaigns, in which he remains a partner. He previously served as a consultant to various local, state and federal campaigns from 1969 to 1975. He was founder and partner of Cerell Winner and Associates from 1966 to 1969, and secretary and travel secretary to Governor Pat Brown from 1965 to 1966.
Former professional associations include: President of the Board of Telecommunications Commissioners for the City of Los Angeles; Board member of Earth Conservation Corps; Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Cable Access Conveners Association; Board member of Mercantile National Bancorp; Board member of the Los Angeles Police Foundation; Board member of Energy Factors Corporation.
Civic and charitable activities include: Member Claremont University Consortium Board of Overseers; Founder, Los Angeles Music Center; Founder II, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Builder, Los Angeles Children’s Museum; Chancellor’s Associate and Grant-in-Aid donor, UCLA; Honorary committee member of the Ginetta Sagan Fund of Amnesty International; President of the Medallion Group of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; Board member International Foundation for Pain Research; Board member of CuresNow.
Involved in horse racing since 1986, he has owned in partnerships the graded stakes winners Magical Fantasy, Domestic Dispute, Daytona, Fine n’ Majestic, Yankee Bravo, Liberian Freighter, Fantastic Spain, The Pamplemousse, and Walkslikeaduck.
He and his wife Annie have four children, Ethan, Zachary, Nicole, and Justyn.
(CHRB)