REGIONAL REPORT : It’s Not Live, but It’s Big : Horse racing: Thanks to satellite wagering, Del Mar becomes No. 1 meeting in the country.

It was a strange feeling, said Joe Harper, as he recalled his first brush with the phenomenon of the invisible horseplayer.

“I’d be sitting in my office, watching the pool totals come across the television screen,” said the president and general manager of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club. “They were huge. Then I’d go outside to walk around. And I saw about six people!”

That was the summer of 1988, when Del Mar began broadcasting its races to a variety of sites that included the major metropolitan tracks of Los Angeles 100 miles to the north. The move effectively stunted the steadily growing attendance and pari-mutuel numbers at Del Mar; but the new revenue rolling in from its several betting “satellites”--including Santa Anita and Hollywood Park--seemed to more than offset any losses.

“We were making money,” said Harper. “But I was awfully lonely counting it.”

He’s still counting. Today, Del Mar has become the nation’s most successful race track in terms of pari-mutuel handle. On any given afternoon, more people are watching the races at an off-track locale, rather than fighting the summer traffic to see the live show at Del Mar. And, without exception, the off-track crowd will out-bet the live crew by a bundle.

Del Mar is reaping the rewards of State Senate Bill 14, signed into law by Gov. Deukmejian in September of 1987. Overnight, the pari-mutuel industry of Southern California was transformed from a one-track grind into a far-flung network of off-track opportunities. As Santa Anita president and chief operating officer Cliff Goodrich said at the time, “It was getting harder and harder to bring people to our product, so we had to take our product to the people.”

The product--legal gambling on horse racing--is available to practically everyone south of Pismo Beach, north of San Diego and west of the Coachella Valley. Live in the high desert? There’s an off-track site in Victorville. The Inland Empire is covered by San Bernardino. Up the coast there are way stations in Ventura, Santa Barbara and Santa Maria.

There are 12 betting satellites, with No. 13 ready to launch at Los Alamitos when the Orange County racing fair ends its meet later this month. All of the money pours directly into a common pool, with the takeouts, the payoffs and the profits consistent throughout the system.

Last year, $187.5 million was bet on the Del Mar races throughout the off-track system. This year’s business is on a pace that should easily pass $200 million.

Events of last weekend proved once again that Del Mar has the most profitable sports television show in Southern California. Spurred on by a pick-six carryover of $1.1 million, fans shattered off-track records everywhere while chasing after Sunday’s jackpot.

In Victorville, 596 hardy souls bet $103,489 on the televised events, 130% more than their 1989 average. At Fairplex Park on the L.A. County Fairgrounds, 2,640 patrons bet an average of $271 each. The combined Santa Anita and Hollywood Park attendance Sunday was 21,287, with nary a thoroughbred in site. Compare that to the 18,260 who showed up at Belmont Park to see New York’s Easy Goer win the 1989 Jockey Club Gold Cup.

Throughout the Southland last Sunday, a record $6,958,869 was churned through hundreds of American Totalisator machines, while another $4,519,124 was bet by the 24,218 fans packed into Del Mar. Although the $11.4-million total did not challenge Santa Anita’s regional record of $15.4 million bet on the 1988 Breeders’ Cup program, it did eclipse the former Del Mar mark by more than a million dollars.

With Santa Anita and Hollywood Park converted to off-track status in the summer, Del Mar is by far the largest beneficiary of the off-track betting boom. Del Mar ends up with the best of all worlds: a direct tap into the broadest possible market and a reduction of attendance pressure on its 53-year-old grandstand and over-stressed facilities.

Santa Anita and Hollywood Park officials are more than happy about their off-season cash flow. But from the beginning there has been an underlying tone of polite resentment. Del Mar, once considered the backwater country cousin of L.A.’s major tracks, suddenly was the No. 1 meeting in the country, at least in terms of betting enthusiasm. Santa Anita was No. 2 and the Hollywood summer meet was No. 3.

Santa Anita, which moved temporarily back to the No. 1 spot after its meeting this year, issued a recent news release that generously predicted record betting totals for Del Mar . . . with Santa Anita’s help.

“I like to call it a little friendly rivalry,” Santa Anita’s Goodrich said. “It’s obvious they have the advantage of the entire L.A. market.”

When SB14 was being hammered out, the L.A. majors tried to scale back Del Mar’s percentage of the off-track profits. Harper and the Del Mar board of directors held firm. As a result, each host track--where the races are actually run--gets 2.65% of off-track straight bets (win, place and show) and 4.25% of off-track exotic bets (doubles, triples, exactas and pick six).

“We had studies that indicated there would be immediate decreases of 33% in handle and 26% in attendance when off-track betting began,” Harper said. “We needed to protect against that. At the same time, we had to hope that people would continue coming to Del Mar.”

The downside would have gutted most race tracks and sent management packing. By the end of 1989, Del Mar’s on-track handle was down 26% and attendance was off 17% from the high-water mark of 1987. Concessions, parking and admission fees suffered badly.

“Basically, it cut our L.A. market in half,” Harper said. “Either half of them decided never to come here again, or all of them decided to come half as often. Probably somewhere in between.”

Save the tears, though. Because of simulcasting, Del Mar has been able to set aside about $6 million a year that will go toward construction of an $80-million grandstand after the 1991 meeting. And it doesn’t hurt to have become No. 1 in the country.

“There’s no doubt that Del Mar has benefited more from satellite wagering than any of the other host tracks,” said Don Robbins, Hollywood Park executive vice president and general manager.

Harper, basking in a $7.5-million per day average this season, merely shrugs and smiles when prodded by his executive counterparts.

“A few years ago, when there was only a little piece of meat out there for all of us, everybody wanted as big a bite as they could get,” the Del Mar executive said. “Now that the piece of meat is bigger, seems like the appetites tend to increase as well.”

There’s a new place at the table. Lloyd Arnold, the principal owner of Los Alamitos Racecourse, will be taking off-track bets on the Del Mar races beginning Aug. 19, the day after the Orange County Fair meeting ends its nighttime run.

The move has not delighted Santa Anita officials, who consider Orange County to be part of their market area and plan an advertising blitz to retain their customers. But Arnold is not fazed, and the letter of the law is on his side.

“It’s time to test this market,” Arnold said. “I believe we’ve been spending our time serving a lot of people out in the boondocks. At the same time, we’ve been dancing around a tremendous amount of people right here in Orange County.”

Harper is hopeful that Los Alamitos will open an untapped market for off-track betting. He is not pleased, however, with Arnold’s plans to offer early betting on his night harness meeting, beginning Aug. 24, during the Del Mar afternoon programs.

“Those are our people in there betting our races,” Harper said. “What he’s talking about is a ‘rent-a-crowd’ kind of deal, and that’s something we’ve always been opposed to. The law is probably not clear on that.”

Arnold further predicted that Los Alamitos would someday be taking bets on the Hollywood and Santa Anita programs, even though the off-track law would need to be amended to change the 45-mile buffer zone. Asked if Santa Anita would support an off-track site barely 30 miles from its doorstep, Goodrich replied with an unequivocal, “No.”

Arnold’s response was one of weary patience.

“I don’t blame them for being reluctant,” he said. “But sooner or later it’s going to hurt these tracks if they don’t take advantage of the entire Orange County market. They (Santa Anita management) say that Los Alamitos would drain a million dollars a day from their on-track handle. That’s $40,000 to them, and I guarantee they won’t get hurt any part of that amount when they see the potential here.”

Robbins agreed that an Orange County simulcast outlet seems to be an inevitability.

“We would be willing to discuss options of expanding the system (in Orange County),” Robbins said. “However, we’re pledged to neutrality on the issue by the terms of our sale of Los Alamitos.

“Everyone is very sensitive to their own situation. But as simulcasting becomes a more and more important part of the overall revenue picture, we owe it to our shareholders to look at anything that will help the bottom line.

“It is still the on-track numbers that need the most attention. That’s what the long-term health of the game depends on.”

To the people who run the off-track outlet in San Bernardino, healthy means a $100,000 night of quarter-horse betting, or a Kentucky Derby simulcast when more than 4,000 fans jam into three special rooms of the National Orange Show grounds. Although the atmosphere does not compare to the live action at Santa Anita or Del Mar, San Bernardino has emerged as the most popular of the year-round satellites.

During the 67-day Hollywood Park meeting that ended on July 23, the San Bernardino averages were 2,116 in attendance and $397,882 in handle. That was double the numbers from Ventura, the next best full-time satellite site.

Brad Randall, the state-licensed manager of the San Bernardino facility, describes his patrons as “serious gamblers” who fit the profile of the typical race-track customer: a middle-aged male who wants fast service, a good television picture and a clean, fairly comfortable place to do his handicapping. They could care less about the beauty of a thoroughbred in motion.

“We’d prefer to be known as a place of entertainment for the 18-and-up crowd,” said Randall, who has lived in the Inland Empire for 25 years. “We certainly have room to expand our market. But in spite of all the advertising we do, there are still people out there who don’t even know we’re here.”

Inside an off-track site, the amenities vary.

Santa Barbara took two years to build a decent facility at the Earl Warren Fairgrounds. Then, not long after its successful opening, it was pressed into service as a temporary shelter in the wake of the devastating fires in June.

The spartan entrance of the Bakersfield betting room at the Kern County fairgrounds once was adorned with the warning, “No knives.” The Cabazon tribe, already sophisticated in marketing bingo, provides a relatively cushy atmosphere for its handful of patrons.

Off-track gamblers can make the same bets that the fans at the host track make. The only difference is the lack of live sport.

And though there are vast differences in the aesthetics of Del Mar, Santa Anita and Hollywood Park, a similar image is developing. With so many people sitting at off-track sites, absorbing the sport through closed-circuit television, the view of the game has been rendered small and two-dimensional. Except for the occasional glimpse of background or unique paddock angle, everything looks the same.

“To a certain extent that’s true,” Don Robbins said. “You’ll find that the more sophisticated handicappers will recognize the tracks have different courses and play them accordingly. But for the most part, these are the same horses running everywhere, and the same jockeys riding them.”

Off-track betting also has forced the various racing associations and owner-trainer groups into a necessary spirit of cooperation, a state of strange grace never before witnessed in Southern California.

All parties convene regularly to handle off-track betting business under the banner of SCOTWINC (Southern California Off-Track Wagering, Inc.), co-chaired by Marje Everett of Hollywood Park and Ray Rogers of the Oak Tree Racing Assn.

“If nothing else, this has forced us to communicate,” Robbins said. “We see each other’s problems up close, and therefore appreciate them more. And we’re no longer in a perpetual state of confrontation with the horsemen. We all have a vested interest in making simulcasting successful.”

At the same time, there has been some friction over the presentation of the product. The host track is in control when it comes to the type of races it cards, the menu of bets offered, the contents and delivery of the daily programs, a generic advertising campaign, and the quality of simulcast television program, which includes announcers giving information and handicapping analysis.

“It can be a little frustrating,” Robbins noted. “This year, for example, we thought we had the program problem with Del Mar ironed out. Instead, we had the same glitch we’ve had for the last two years, and they were late on opening day.”

Del Mar’s Harper sympathizes with the satellite operator who is faced with a different racing program every time the host track rotates. Each track has a different first post time and a different set of exotic bets, not to mention inconsistent quality of television broadcasts.

“There’s also a lot of frustration over the kind of promotion the satellites can do,” Harper added. “We’ve increased the amount they can have for advertising in their individual market areas, and that’s a good step.”

In the meantime, Harper and his fellow Del Mar officials are resisting the temptation to beat the drum too hard over their ascent to No. 1.

“There’s a lot of downside to that step,” Harper said. “I’ve always been more comfortable being a track that was struggling. It’s always easier to win coming from behind.

“I know what the numbers say, but I don’t feel like we’ve got to hang on by our fingernails to the top, because we’re nowhere near where we want to be,” Harper noted. “We’ve got an old, aging grandstand that needs replacing. We’ve got a very energetic five-year strategic plan. It’s like we’re coming from behind again.

“I look at it this way,” Harper concluded. “Del Mar ended a 20-year lease as No. 1 in the country. We’ve got a new 20-year lease and a lot of things we want to accomplish. And I’m looking at it like we’re starting over.”

Jim Murray is on vacation