Horse Betting Could Use Thrill of Match Races

Horse guys reflecting on better times lament the passing of that turf jewel, the match race.

Quartered at Hollywood Park today are the two top thoroughbreds of America, Criminal Type and Sunday Silence, battling for the decoration of 1990 Horse of the Year.

They are clearly the class. Meeting recently in the Hollywood Gold Cup, they leave the others up the course, roaring through the stretch a nostril apart.

Criminal Type gets it, but the Sunday Silence camp is quick to note the winner isn’t that lucky if he isn’t blessed with a five-pound edge in the weights.

During a better day in racing, the decks would be cleared for a match, winner take all. And anyone with even a fleck of interest in a horse would turn his attention to such a contest.

But this is an age of “other commitments.” And efforts on the part of Hollywood Park to stage a match are rebuffed, even though the house would have conjured up a half-million dollars--even more--to sponsor such a race, at equal weights.

It is possible the two horses will hook up at Arlington Park this summer, but it won’t be a match race, divesting the event of the carbonation that is found in mano-a-mano.

Over the last 15 years, match races involving commercial grade horseflesh, if not less, have been promoted at such cavalry posts as Agua Caliente, Centennial Park, Ak-Sar-Ben and Les Bois Park.

But they have vanished from the grand circuit, the last big one arranged at Belmont in 1975, when Foolish Pleasure, a gentleman, was matched against Ruffian, a lady.

It turned out to be a sad day. Ruffian broke down on the backstretch and couldn’t finish.

But, for a century, the match race was the guts of racing. There was Man o’ War against Sir Barton, Alsab against Whirlaway, Armed against Assault, Nashua against Swaps.

An automobile dealer in Los Angeles, the late C. S. Howard, owned the great racer, Seabiscuit. Howard had the appearance of an investment banker, but the spirit of a riverboat gambler.

Match races offered a tingle of excitement he couldn’t resist. He matched Seabiscuit against War Admiral. He also matched him against the South American, Ligaroti.

And, coming upon a phenomenal sprinter named Fair Truckle, he was talked into matching him one day against a quarter horse called Barbra B.

The year was 1947. The distance: 440 yards. The site: Hollywood Park--in the morning.

There was no admission charge, no pari-mutuel betting, but an awful lot of betting between Howard and his supporters and a bunch of cowboys rolling in from Arizona and Texas, backing the quarter horse.

Barbra B. shoots out of the gate first and stays there. And the cowboys take home the money.

It was an outlaw race, with all the flavor of a fight on a barge. It is over in a flash, but any guy lucky enough to have seen it will record it as one of the more memorable sports events of his time.

When those in racing, though, turned to counting dollars, they would start making what is known as business decisions, and the match race would disappear, burying with it that breed of owner with sporting blood.

Today, racing must struggle to pump into the industry devices for attracting new horse players to displace those who have gone to their reward, leaving behind shoes with holes and a mound of tickets on selections beaten in a photo.

Hollywood Park has succeeded, for instance, in capturing four Friday nights of racing, convinced that night racing during spring and summer in the Los Angeles area will noticeably outdraw racing during the afternoon.

Right now, there is indisputable evidence of this. Racing at Hollywood, which normally would attract 12,000 on Friday afternoon, has on the last two Friday nights roughly doubled that figure.

Ideally, Hollywood, which races five times a week, would run Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights and Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

But the trainers resist such a scheme and make it known that permitting even four Friday nights during the meeting is, on their part, an act of generosity.

It is their argument that racing at night disrupts the schedule of the horses and of those who look after them.

The track counters that racing at night attracts a young crowd, contrasted to daytime when the average age of the Hollywood Park race-goer is 58. It is the track’s position that one needn’t be that experienced to bet a horse. A guy 28 can do it, if his job doesn’t interfere with his gambling.

Drawing new people to the track last Friday night, Hollywood feared the per capita betting would drop because of dilettantes visiting the scene mainly to have a good time.

But the final figure checked out at $241.37, just about matching that of daytime, when the place is populated by the veterans.

A class horse player isn’t anxious to consort with novices, no more than a seasoned traveler cares to sit next to someone who talks about rock-and-roll.

But Hollywood Park feels that the more new Friday night fans are exposed to this form of culture, the faster they will be educated.

No one likes a dumb horse player, although the point has been made that calling any horse player dumb is redundant.