Oak Tree Meeting Numbers Off a Little; Lottery Gets the Blame

Although business at this year’s Oak Tree-at-Santa Anita meeting compared closely with 1984, track officials are admitting that the new state lottery was a negative influence on attendance and betting.

Oak Tree finished its 32-day thoroughbred season Monday with a daily average attendance of 26,833, down 2.7% from last year. The mutuel handle, boosted by more than $3 million that was bet on televised races from Aqueduct on Breeders’ Cup day, showed a daily average of $4.9 million, off one half of 1% from 1984.

Total attendance for the meeting was a record 858,652, barely surpassing the total in ‘83, which was the last time Oak Tree ran a 32-day meet.

“There’s no question that the lottery is having an effect, even though it might just be gradual,” said Cliff Goodrich, an assistant general manager at Santa Anita. “Some people might be coming out seven times a season instead of eight. Some might be betting $34 instead of $40. But we still feel like we have a better product than the lottery, and the important thing is not to panic.”

Oak Tree introduced the $1 Pick Nine wager, hoping that pools would climb to the seven-figure levels that the lottery offers. But because of the short meeting and due to the fact that fans picked the winners of all nine races on three days during the season, the largest pool was just over $400,000. The biggest Pick Nine payoff was $358,000--a gigantic sum, but still not comparable to the lottery’s millions.

On Monday, as 28,586 fans dodged raindrops at Santa Anita, no one picked all nine winners, but the entire pool was distributed because it was the end of the meeting and seven tickets with eight winners were worth more than $35,000 apiece.

The Pick Nine players might have had a better chance had Silveyville, the favorite in the $85,900 Henry P. Russell Handicap, been able to handle the soggy turf and the high weight of 124 pounds.

In contention until mid-stretch, Silveyville faded to sixth and Talakeno rallied to overtake Double Quick Time, winning the Russell by 2 1/2 lengths.

It was the second straight day an offspring of Vaguely Noble won an Oak Tree stake, Estrapade having captured the Yellow Ribbon on Sunday.

Talakeno, bred and owned by Steve and Gary Wolfson of Ocala, Fla., and ridden by Pat Valenzuela, covered 1 1/2 miles in 2:04. He paid $10.20 for $2 as the second-betting choice and gave trainer Laz Barrera his first stakes win of the meeting.

Except for the millionaire Silveyville, Talakeno had earned more money--$239,000--than any of the 10 starters prior to the Russell, but the 5-year-old Florida-bred had been first in only one of 11 starts this year.

“I wanted a soft turf, but when it kept raining I thought it might come up too soft,” Barrera said. “This horse ran a big race in New York on a soft turf (finishing second to Tri for Size in the Sword Dancer Handicap at Belmont Park in July), and he just missed in several other races. If Silveyville didn’t like the soft turf today, I thought we would have a chance to beat him.”

Laffit Pincay rode four winners Monday, giving him 10 in the last three days of the meeting, but he still finished second to Chris McCarron in the jockey standings. McCarron, winning the Oak Tree title for the third straight year, totaled 36 winners, three more than Pincay.

Trainer Mel Stute saddled one winner Monday to give him a meet-high total of 17, which was seven more than runner-up Gary Jones. Stute’s big horse at Oak Tree was Snow Chief, who won both the Norfolk and the B.J. Ridder Stakes.

The faces of horses and horsemen won’t change much when Hollywood Park begins its fall season at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. Ten horses are entered in the opening-day $60,000 Hollywood Turf Sprint Championship. The high weights are Temerity Prince (122 pounds) and Debonaire Junior (124), who ran 1-2 in the Ancient Title Handicap at Santa Anita last month.