Time Is Running Out for Suffolk and Hialeah : Horse Racing: Two tracks with little in common face similar fates--the prospect of closing.

Racetracks are the source of so much entertainment for so many people, and they hold so much economic importance for workers and investors in the racing industry, that the demise of a track is always saddening--even if the track is a gloomy place like Suffolk Downs.

And if the track happens to be one like Hialeah, with its glorious history and physical beauty, the prospect of its closing is devastating.

But after events of the past two weeks, Suffolk appears doomed. Even optimists in Boston who thought that owner Buddy LeRoux could be dissuaded from shutting down the plant are now counting the days until the final death knell is sounded.

Hialeah may not be doomed--not yet at least--but the track has reached the nadir of its existence. Business is so bad that it may not be able to stay open for all of its scheduled 1989-1990 season.

The tracks and their respective plights have little in common, save for one thing. The states of Massachusetts and Florida, which have extracted so many millions of dollars in revenue from these tracks, are now standing by and watching passively as they suffer.

Ever since LeRoux purchased Suffolk in 1986, he has made no secret of the fact that he had little interest in running a racetrack; he coveted the East Boston real estate on which the plant sits. He was ready to close Suffolk in 1987 until the state offered him some concessions in an exchange for an agreement that would keep the track open through Dec. 31, 1989. As the date approached, Bostonians prayed that a white knight would appear and buy or lease the track from LeRoux. And, to everyone’s relief, a white knight by the name of Ladbrokes did ride into Boston.

The British bookmaking firm was prepared to lease Suffolk for a sum between $1.5 million and $2 million a year while it was building a new track in Boston -- and it offered to give LeRoux a 10 percent interest. “Everybody thought it was a tremendous deal,” said the Boston Globe’s Ron Indrisano. “Everybody but Buddy.”

Ladbrokes thought the agreement was as good as signed, and top executives of the conglomerate came to town to complete the formalities. To their shock, LeRoux refused the lucrative offer, made a whole new set of wild financial demands and killed the chance that Ladbrokes could rescue Massachusetts racing.

“It came as a shock to a lot of people,” said racing commission chairman Henry O’Donnell. “But to those who have known Mr. LeRoux over a number of years, it was not a surprise.”

LeRoux, for reasons known only to himself, doesn’t want to sell or lease Suffolk at any price. He wants to shut it down. He has declined to winterize the Suffolk racing surface this month, so that when the first freeze hits Boston, the track will be unraceable -- and Suffolk will cease to operate.

While LeRoux wants to administer euthanasia to Suffolk, John Brunetti has fought with all his energy and cunning to keep the track he owns alive and well. But in the view of his critics, Brunetti’s tactics have boomeranged and brought Hialeah to the brink of disaster.

For years Brunetti fought fiercely with Gulfstream Park over the right to operate during the prime midwinter dates at the height of the Florida tourist season. He disdained compromises; he launched court challenges whenever rulings went against Hialeah. Officials in the state legislature grew so disgusted by all the annual wrangling over racing dates that they “deregulated” the industry; Hialeah, Gulfstream and Calder, the three tracks in greater Miami, were left to work out their own racing dates.

But instead of agreeing on a mutually beneficial racing schedule, the track managements couldn’t agree on anything, and they drew up racing schedules that promised head-on conflict between Hialeah and Calder, then Hialeah and Gulfstream. Hialeah is at a disadvantage because of geography and demographics -- it sits in an ethnic neighborhood well-removed from the affluent tourist-oriented communities to the north -- but even Brunetti couldn’t have imagined how crushing the disadvantage would be.

Last Saturday, the first day of the conflict, Hialeah tried to lure fans with free admission, but Calder outdrew its rival 10,286 to 4,114, and generated a handle $1 million higher than Hialeah’s. An executive of another track remarked, “Even if you’re a bona fide Hialeah fan, and you go there and see nobody around you and $4,000 in the win pool, you’re not going to want to go back. The spiral has to be downward.” And so it has been: on Tuesday Hialeah’s attendance was a pitiful 2,682.

Some people in Florida racing wonder if Brunetti may cancel part of the scheduled 158-day Hialeah meeting, but the owner said, “I’m going to take the hit whatever it costs.” But he is retrenching already. “We’re evaluating our different areas, cutting back, making the operation as financially viable as we can,” Brunetti said. “We’ll take a look at everything after a 30-day time frame.”

That sounds pretty grim. But at least it’s more time than Suffolk Downs has to live.