Only Paper Work Remains in Los Alamitos Sale

The partial sale of Los Alamitos Race Course to the quarter-horse interests of Ed Allred and R.D. Hubbard was completed when Lloyd Arnold, the current owner, signed the final papers late Wednesday night. All that remains, according to all of the parties, is some “house-keeping paper work” that should be completed early next week.

Arnold and Chris Bardis agreed to selling a half-interest in 125 acres of track property for $16.5 million. The transaction is rather complicated because there are several deals going at the same time.

The half-interest is actually being sold to Quarter Racing Inc., a corporation in which Allred owns 56% of the stock. He has an agreement from minority shareholders to purchase almost all of the remaining stock in the next few weeks. At that point, he will sell a third of the stock to Hubbard and Arnold separately.

The deal should end the stormy relationship that the harness racing group, Arnold and Bardis, have had with the quarter-horse interests. Both were bidding to buy the track from the Hollywood Park Realty Co., with the Arnold group eventually winning. The purchase price for the 297 acres was $71 million.

However, a long legal battle over rights to the property was expected to follow. Both groups then sought a compromise that would benefit both harness racing and quarter-horse racing.

“It’s difficult to forgive and forget but we’ve done that,” Allred said. “It’s been a long bitter struggle but we were confident that the basic strength of our lease would ultimately prevail.”

Arnold said: “We’re too far down the road to turn back now.”

Allred and Hubbard are also seeking approval from the California Horse Racing Board on the building of a racing facility in the Riverside area. The opening of the facility would create some overlap in night racing in Southern California. Allred would like to race quarter horses at Los Alamitos for 23 or 24 weeks and for another 14 to 16 weeks at Riverside. Harness racing would be at Los Alamitos for about 25 weeks. There is a possibility that harness racing could also be held at Riverside.

Los Alamitos has been experiencing a rebirth since Arnold purchased the track in September. Attendance and handle have improved more than 25% and there are plans for a major refurbishing of the track.

The track will turn to quarter-horse racing in April. Allred said Arnold will still be in charge of the operations of that meet but Allred would be in charge of the philosophy. Eventually Allred and Hubbard will run all of the quarter-horse racing and Arnold and Bardis the harness racing.