Hollypark Will Celebrate With Night Racing

Hollywood Park will celebrate its 50th anniversary June 10 by staging night thoroughbred racing for the first time in its history. First post is 7 p.m.

Plans for the celebration were announced Tuesday by entertainment personalities Merv Griffin and John Forsythe, who are on the track’s board of directors, during a press conference at the home of Marje Everett, Hollywood Park’s chairman and chief executive officer.

Griffin said that obtaining approval for even one night of racing from the California Horse Racing Board was difficult, and described it as “a pretty emotional issue among the trainers and the grooms and the horse owners.”

Forsythe said that the horsemen finally consented to race at night after a series of meetings. The idea for a night of racing to celebrate the track’s golden anniversary was Griffin’s, Forsythe said.

“The horsemen were quite opposed to it,” he said. “And nobody’s going to push the horsemen into night racing, not without their willingness to go ahead.

“A lot of people felt there was something gimmicky about it. We had to show them that it was not a gimmick, that it was going to have some kind of positive effect as well as being an event of some importance.”

Night racing, even just for one night, “will perhaps expose new people to racing who don’t get a chance to come out,” Forsythe said.

“Simulcasting, even being as good as it is right now, is merely a Band-Aid in my opinion. It hasn’t solved the problem of getting new people to the track. Maybe this could be a method of doing that.”

Three jockeys, Bill Shoemaker, Laffit Pincay and Gary Stevens, expressed no objection.

“I’ve night-raced at several different tracks throughout the country and I actually enjoy it more than day racing,” Stevens said. “I really don’t see any problems with it and I’d like to give it a try.”

Shoemaker agreed. “I don’t mind it at all,” he said. “I’ve raced at night before. My problem is that I fall asleep at 9 o’clock.”

The feature event on the 9-race card June 10, the $100,000-added Cinema Handicap to be run at 1 1/8 miles on the turf, is likely to go to the post considerably after that hour, however.

But, if he has a mount in the Belmont Stakes, Shoemaker will not have to worry about staying awake June 10. The Belmont is June 11, and more than a few top jockeys and trainers may miss Hollywood Park’s party.

“The Belmont fields are generally smaller, so I don’t think were going to lose an awful lot,” Forsythe said.