Local horse race fans have fared well at the Ferndale meet in recent years, and the question is whether that will continue to be the case in 2024.

The annual summer horse racing begins on Aug. 23 and will run for three consecutive weekends, with eight days of racing on tap.

The local fair races have paid out the two of the three largest mutual returns ever on the Northern California summer fair circuit with Gold Rush jackpot payouts of $292,300 in 2019 and $206,883 in 2021.

And local fans will be hoping for more of the same in 2024.

There will be a pair of hefty jackpots up for grabs when the128th Humboldt County Fair race meet opens later this month.

Both the Gold Strike Super High Five and the Gold Rush Pick-Six will have bonanzas of nearly $40,000 each.

The Gold Strike Super High Five requires bettors to correctly select the first five finishers in exact order in the day’s last race, and the Gold Rush Pick-Six asks fans to select the winners of the day’s final six races.

One astute handicapper from Loleta collected Ferndale’s all-time record payout of $292,300 on a Gold Rush Pick-Six on the opening day of the 2019 Ferndale meet.

The only bigger payout ever at a NorCal met was a $363,000 Pick-Six payout during the 2016 Golden Gate Fields meet.

“It has been amazing that Humboldt has recorded such giant Pick-Six payouts, but when there are no single winning tickets at Fair stops earlier in the summer at Pleasanton and Sacramento (where the Gold Rush wager is offered) the pools grow to big amounts by the time racing reaches Ferndale,” Humboldt mutual manager Doug Gooby said.

Each wager has a minimum bet of $.20 for single selections in each race in the case of the Gold Rush Pick-Six, and a single “first-five” order of finish in the case of the Gold Strike Super High Five.