Horse Racing : Inter-Track Betting at Del Mar Hurts Caliente

Taking bets at Del Mar on telecasts of the races from Hollywood Park may be good business for the state, Hollywood and the horsemen in terms of added purse money, but in just three weeks the operation has had a distinct adverse effect on Caliente.

Since inter-track wagering, as it’s called, began at Del Mar on Hollywood’s races Nov. 18, betting at Caliente has dipped about 15%. Besides weekend horse racing and dog racing five times a week, the Tijuana track also offers betting on about six American tracks through its foreign book.

Before recent legislation paved the way for inter-track betting in Southern California, Caliente’s only competition was Del Mar’s seven-week season each summer. But now Del Mar, which is about 20 miles from the Caliente track, has become a year-round betting operation and will offer racing from Hollywood Park, Santa Anita, Los Alamitos and Fairplex Park when it isn’t running its own horses.

“The 15% drop-off in the last few weeks could have been worse,” said Mickey Kiser, a Caliente spokesman. “We projected that inter-track at Del Mar might hurt us by as much as 30%.”

Kiser says that on Mondays and Tuesdays--when Hollywood Park is dark--betting at Caliente has been up about 15%. The 22nd District Agricultural Fair Assn., which operates the Del Mar facilities, estimates that it has a hard core of 1,500 bettors, and apparently many from that group are playing seven days a week by adding Caliente to their Del Mar-Hollywood Park schedule.

Del Mar has been averaging about 2,300 fans a day for the Hollywood Park races, with betting averaging $450,000.

Two days of 15% gains will not, however, compensate for what Caliente is losing on the five other days. To combat this, the Mexican track will open a race book, in two or three months, that will be within walking distance of the American border .

“Getting back across the border has frequently been a headache for Americans who come to Caliente,” Kiser said. “When this new facility is finished, Americans can park their cars on their side and easily walk to it.”

Trainer John Gosden will try to win the Hollywood Turf Cup for the fourth straight year when he runs Allez Milord in the 1 1/2-mile, $500,000 race Sunday.

Gosden won the Turf Cup with Alphabatim in 1984 and 1986, and he saddled Zoffany for his victory in 1985.

A field of 13 or 14 is likely Sunday, including Allez Milord and five other horses that were unable to beat Theatrical in the $2-million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Hollywood ParkNov. 21.

Allez Millord, winner of the Oak Tree Invitational at Santa Anita in his previous start, finished eighth in the Breeders’ Cup.

Other Breeders’ Cup Turf starters running in the Turf Cup will be Village Star II, who finished third, four lengths behind Theatrical; Vilzak, fourth; Rivlia, ninth; Great Communicator, 12th, and Swink, 13th.

They’ll be joined by Anka Germania, Forlitano, Gallant Archer, Political Ambition, Stately Don, Tasso, Schiller and, possibly, Santella Mac.

On Saturday, Zabaleta, Pine Tree Lane and Exclusive Enough head the field in the National Sprint Championship.

Very Subtle won’t start in the Sprint Championship because trainer Mel Stute figures that the 3-year-old filly has already done enough to win the Eclipse Award as the nation’s best sprinter.

Very Subtle, at 16-1, won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint by four lengths, beating Groovy, who had been undefeated in six starts this year.

“Last year, Smile upset Groovy in the same race, and then he was voted top sprinter, so I think this filly deserves it this year,” Stute said.

“Not only that, Very Subtle has beaten Sacahuista many more times than she beat us, and Sacahuista was a big winner on Breeders’ Cup day (in the Distaff).”

The Breeders’ Cup ratings for the four-hour NBC telecast were the lowest in the four-year history of the event. The ratings averaged 2.9, compared to 5.1, 4.0 and 4.4 the first three years. Each point is equivalent to about 866,000 homes.

This year’s Breeders’ Cup was facing extraordinary competition from televised college football games that included Oklahoma-Nebraska and USC-UCLA.

“We have one more year on our contract with NBC, and then there are two option years,” said one Breeders’ Cup official. “We haven’t heard anything from NBC since this year’s races. But if we don’t do any better next year (at Churchill Downs), I’m sure there will have to be some talking before they renew.”

The puzzling aspect to the harness-racing scandal at Yonkers Raceway is that among the seven implicated drivers is Mike LaChance, one of the sport’s leading drivers. LaChance has won more races than anybody else in the last three years, he is over the 700 mark in victories this year, and his horses have earned about $6 million.

All but the driver of the winning horse in a race at Yonkers Nov. 14 have been suspended, and the track has also denied driving rights to the suspected seven even while they appeal the charges.

A $3 trifecta--betting horses to finish in 1-2-3 order--should have paid an estimated $1,000, but instead an 18-1 shot, a 2-1 horse and a 6-1 shot added up to a $192 return.

The winning ticket in question netted less than $100,000. If there was a seven-way split, would LaChance have risked future earning power in the millions just for a piece of that kind of payoff?

Horse Racing Notes

Just three weeks to go and Angel Cordero will have completed his first year without a suspension since he began riding in the United States 27 years ago. . . . Alysheba, with just 4 wins in 17 starts, has earned $2.8 million and ranks 12th on the money list. All of the horses ahead of him have won at least eight races, and John Henry, who leads the list with almost $6.6 million, won 39 times. . . . Wayne Lukas, with 21 wins, and Charlie Whittingham, with 14, have trained about 31% of the winners of major races this year.

Despite winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, Success Express is the 10-1 second choice, along with Regal Classic, in the Frontier’s Kentucky Derby future book in Las Vegas. Forty Niner, who skipped the Breeders’ Cup, is the favorite at 8-1. . . . Hawthorne has a Super Bet, which requires a bettor to pick the 1-2 order of the fourth and fifth races and the 1-2-3 order in the sixth. When a Chicago syndicate won the Super Bet with a $1,100 ticket and collected $1.5 million, a New York group invested $70,000 and lost. The New Yorkers actually came to the track to bet $80,000, but couldn’t get the remaining $10,000 down before the fourth race was run. They wouldn’t have had a winning ticket with the extra $10,000, anyway.