Can Hollywood Park Keep It Going? : Santa Anita Set Records as Fans, and the Money, Returned

With Santa Anita having pointed the way, the question is: Can Hollywood Park follow the directions?

The Arcadia track ended its most successful season Monday, with both attendance and handle showing positive gains. More than 30,000 fans a day visited the track during the 88-day meeting and Santa Anita became the first track in North American to average more than $6 million in daily handle.

Today, Hollywood Park will open its 48th spring-summer meeting and, if Santa Anita General Manager Cliff Goodrich is correct, the Inglewood track, too, should experience an upswing in attendance and handle.

Goodrich was astonished by the success of Santa Anita’s winter-spring meeting.

“I’ve been in racing for 22 years and I have never seen a meet finish like this one did,” he said. “I mean, we were strong all the way through but, largely because of the Pick Nine carry-over I suppose, the last two weeks were just incredible.

“I think we averaged $8 million a day for the last six days and I think we averaged $10 million a day for the last three days. It’s going to be a while before we do that again.”

The Pick Nine carry-over, which reached a North American record $2,280,106, contributed to $22,210,386 being wagered last Saturday and Sunday alone, when attendance totaled 98,305. That helped boost Santa Anita’s average attendance for the meeting to 30,014.

“The best thing is we got back over 30,000 people a day,” Goodrich said. “We went below it last year (to 29,288) for the first time in a while. But we were up like 2.7% in attendance and that’s even more important to us than the handle. We couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Each of Southern California’s three major tracks--Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar--have blamed the California Lottery for declines in both attendance and handle over the past few meetings, but Goodrich said he believes the popularity of the lottery is “on the wane.”

“I don’t track lottery sales, but people I talk to are losing interest in the lottery,” he said. “I think it’s a sucker bet. . . . I really think people have found out that it’s difficult to win at the lottery. I think we’ve got a few of them back, I really do. Hopefully, next year we’ll get a few more of them back.”

Santa Anita’s success this season could also be traced to a particularly competitive series of races, with the handicap division in particular offering continuing battles between the likes of Kentucky Derby winner Ferdinand, Snow Chief, Broad Brush and Variety Road.

“I think that (the quality of the racing) in large measure has had to do with our success,” Goodrich said. “I think our big races especially were so exciting that those kinds of things carry over.

“I know a lot of people said that we wrote a lot more cheap races this year than we did in the past and that might be true, but they were competitive races.

“Good racing is good business. That’s an axiom and I think it showed this year.”

Despite the ill concealed rivalry that exists between Santa Anita and Hollywood Park, Goodrich said he believes the Inglewood track will also experience a more successful meeting.

“It’s not good for racing if the other tracks don’t do well,” he said. “I think there’s some momentum going now and I think there’ll be some improvement in all of the meets throughout the rest of the year.

“I’m really confident of that because of the fact that the lottery is somewhat on the wane. I think that has a lot to do with it.”

The first significant race in Hollywood Park’s 73-day meeting, which runs through July 22, is today’s Debonair Stakes.

Normally, a $60,000-added stake draws little or no interest, but today’s race is different, if only for one reason.

The Debonair marks the return to racing of Persevered, one of last year’s leading 2-year-olds. Trainer Laz Barrera is pointing Persevered at the May 16 Preakness Stakes, and this will be the first of two preparatory outings for the colt toward that goal.

Persevered, dogged by illness and injury--first a virus and then a clipped right front ankle--has not raced since Nov. 29, when he won the Hoist the Flag Stakes at Hollywood Park.

Now, Barrera said, he is almost back in top form and “as good as any one of” this season’s Triple Crown horses.

“He’s doing very, very good,” the trainer said. “He’s come back perfect. The only thing is, he needs a couple of races before he’ll be ready.

“He’s been training all along. He was on the treadmill for 30 days. Swimming and on the treadmill. Then he got three workouts. I don’t know if he’s 100% ready for the race but he needs a race badly. I have to go with him. I can’t wait no more.”

Jockey Gary Stevens has not been working Persevered but agrees that the colt has Preakness potential.

“I’ve seen him training, he looks wonderful,” Stevens said. “He looks great. He’s definitely that (Preakness) caliber of horse. It just depends on how quick he can get ready for it. There’s no question in my mind that he’s that kind of horse. He was one of the best 2-year-olds I rode last year.”

A field of eight will go to the post in the Debonair, including Exclusive Enough, who beat Persevered by half a length in the Hollywood Preview last November.

First post today is 2 p.m., with the gates open at 11:30 a.m.