UNDER THE LIGHTS : Hollywood Park Celebrates 50th Anniversary Today With Nighttime Racing

A night at the races?

The Marx Brothers obviously didn’t think much of that as a title when they were horsing around in 1937, and horsemen don’t think much of it as an idea in 1988, either.

“I don’t like night racing,” trainer Jack Van Berg said the other day. “You work night and day that way. It’s bad enough as it is. We spend enough time at the barn.”

That sentiment is echoed up and down the Hollywood Park shed rows. Still, the track perseveres, trying to come up with a magic formula to turn straw into gold.

The latest idea--”It’s not a gimmick, although some people think it is,” said actor and track board member John Forsythe--is to have an evening of thoroughbred racing. Hence tonight’s program, beginning at 7 p.m. and headlined by the $100,000 Cinema Handicap.

On June 10, 1938, exactly 50 years ago, Hollywood Park ran its first race. Marking the occasion with a night of racing “under the stars and in front of the stars” was the idea of fellow board member Merv Griffin, Forsythe said recently.

The horsemen reluctantly agreed, but only after receiving assurances that this was merely a way to celebrate the track’s anniversary and not a trial balloon for some future venture into night racing.

According to several sources, Marje Everett, Hollywood Park’s chairman and chief executive officer, had to agree not to raise the matter again for at least three years.

“I regard (night racing) as pretty unnatural and incredibly hard on the people working in the business,” trainer John Gosden said. “It’s all very well saying we’ve got the middle of the day off (but) it doesn’t matter. You know you’ve got to come back. To me it’s rather antisocial.”

Gosden said he is familiar with night racing at New Jersey’s Meadowlands but still does not like the concept.

“Having seen it at the Meadowlands, which is really my only experience of it, I can see it from the crowd aspect,” he said. “You go out to dinner in this luxury setup they have there and you bet. It’s like going to a casino in the evening.

“But from the point of view of horses, from the point of view of staff, I obviously don’t think it’s the best thing. It’s very hard to start at 4:30 or 5 in the morning and still be putting saddles on horses at midnight.”

And horsemen really have no option but to train thoroughbreds in the early morning, Gosden said.

“You’ve got no choice, first of all because of heat exhaustion,” he said. “You can’t be going out in the heat of the afternoon or the middle of the day and letting them sweat up that much. They sweat enough in a race. You don’t need to do that. You need to train them in the mornings when it’s cool, when there’s the most moisture in the track. That’s the best time to train. You can’t just sort of start at lunchtime and go through the rest of the day.”

Then there is what trainer Hector Palma calls the labor problem.

“I don’t mind night racing like they’ve got this Friday, where it’s one time,” he said. “But in general, night racing can cause problems with the labor. We have to start training the horses early, and the grooms get up at 5 o’clock in the morning. Now we’re going to work them to 1 o’clock in the night?”

Added trainer Wayne Lukas: “The biggest problem with night racing is your work force. Most of the people who are rubbing (grooming) a horse want to take it over (to the track) and be with it when it runs.”

Night racing would cause stables to either double their staffs or have their employees work split shifts, either of which is unacceptable to most trainers.

Jockeys aren’t as opposed as trainers to night racing, but they do see a danger: the chance of a power failure during a race.

Said Gary Stevens: “I raced one night in Portland where the lights went out. We were at the half-mile pole when the whole race track totally blacked out. It was a very scary feeling.”

Although no accident resulted that night, Stevens said that jockeys with mounts on tonight’s nine-race card should be aware of the danger.

“They should understand that whenever that happens, the race is over,” he said. “Just pull your horse up and try not to change position from where you’re at, moving inside or outside. It’s very dangerous. There’ve been some bad accidents where the lights have gone out.

“Every race track is supposed to have an emergency backup system where the power automatically kicks on. But still it takes 10 or 15 seconds for the backup system to kick on, and a lot can happen even in two seconds.”

Eddie Delahoussaye agreed. “Basically, I feel that if you’re going to have night racing, you’d better have auxiliary lights that can flash on quick,” he said.

Otherwise, Stevens and most other jockeys have no qualms about racing at night. Alex Solis, for example, said he had experienced it in his native Panama.

“It doesn’t bother me,” he said. “That’s what they pay me for, to ride.”

Stevens, who will miss tonight’s program because he is in New York preparing to ride Kentucky Derby winner Winning Colors in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, concurs.

“I don’t mind night racing at all,” he said. “I think it will be good for racing, this one night. I think it’ll give the people a chance to get out who normally don’t have a chance because they’re working or whatever.

“As far as night racing itself goes, (jockeys) have to make some small adjustments. Your field of vision isn’t quite as good it is in the day but, like I say, you adjust to it. I think you can ride just as well at night and I think the horses perform just as well at night.”

That last point may be open to debate. Palma and Gosden, for example, say there could be a downturn in a horse’s performance after dark. Lukas, however, doesn’t think so.

Palma said: “I think you’re going to really change the performance of horses. Some horses, they don’t run good under the lights. Just like in humans; some drive real good in the daytime and not too good at night.”

Gosden took a more scientific approach but came to the same conclusion.

“Well, there’s no doubt from studies done on horses’ blood-sugar levels and everything else that they definitely go into a dip later in the day,” he said. “They’re on a cycle like us, and I know that humans play at night, but these horses are used to training early in the morning and not racing late at night.”

Lukas, who has extensive experience with night racing as a former quarter horse trainer and now as a thoroughbred trainer who regularly sends horses to race at the Meadowlands, disagrees.

“I don’t think night racing affects the performance of a horse at all,” he said. “In fact, I always was under the impression it didn’t even matter. I think they run just as well. We run at the Meadowlands, we take them right from Belmont to the Meadowlands and back and we don’t see any difference.”

As with so much in the sport, it may well depend on the individual horse.

“Some horses come to train early in the morning (while it’s still dark), so maybe it won’t bother those horses,” Solis said. “But other ones it’s going to bother when they see the shadows. It just depends on the horse.”

And so the great Hollywood Park debate continues. Night thoroughbred racing may never become a reality in Los Angeles. Then again, tonight’s program could be a preview of things to come.

Whatever the answer, the words of one trainer are worth considering.

“I don’t know if the people of California are ready for night racing,” he said. “Especially in this area. That’s another question. Maybe it will be a success on Friday night. But I ask myself: People don’t come to Hollywood Park in the daytime, what’s going to happen in the nighttime?”