OAK TREE : Many Top Horses May Skip Meeting Because Breeders’ Cup Is Not Local

The specter of the Breeders’ Cup--this year’s and the one in 1992--hangs over the Oak Tree Racing Assn. as it begins its 22nd season today at Santa Anita.

A fact of life for Oak Tree when its season isn’t accompanied by a Breeders’ Cup in California is that few horses use the short fall meeting to prepare for the cup, although Great Communicator went from a second-place finish in the Oak Tree Invitational to a victory in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs in 1988.

This year, however, the Breeders’ Cup--seven races worth a total of $10 million--is almost 3,000 miles and a little more than three weeks away, at Belmont Park on Oct. 27, and the distance-and-time factors make it unlikely that Oak Tree, despite a $3.8-million stakes program, will be showcasing many of the horses that will run in New York.

Exceptions could be Best Pal, whose performance in Sunday’s Norfolk Stakes will determine whether the 2-year-old colt is supplemented, at a cost of $120,000, for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Beyond Perfection, a prospect for the Oak Leaf Stakes Monday at Santa Anita, is also a probable starter in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.

Trainer Charlie Whittingham, who has won the Oak Tree Invitational nine times, nominated Golden Pheasant for the $500,000 race Saturday, but he is sticking with his original plan and won’t run the Arlington Million winner until the Breeders’ Cup Turf on Oct. 27.

Mostly, though, major horses with California connections--such as Criminal Type, Bayakoa, Gorgeous, Steinlen, Prized and Quiet American--won’t be using Oak Tree as a springboard into the Breeders’ Cup. Prized, winner of last year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf, has had a hoof problem and has run sparingly this year. He has only a 50-50 chance of making the Breeders’ Cup and may run in the Burke Handicap at Santa Anita on Nov. 5, Oak Tree’s closing day, and then head for the Japan Cup after that.

In the three years that California has had the Breeders’ Cup--Hollywood Park in 1984 and ’87 and Santa Anita in 1986--Oak Tree’s schedule dovetailed perfectly for trainers needing tighteners for their horses. Oak Tree fans saw Chief’s Crown, Capote, Skywalker, Success Express and Ferdinand prepare at Santa Anita for Breeders’ Cup victories.

The Breeders’ Cup directors would like to return the races to California in 1992, but negotiations have dragged on without Oak Tree signing a contract.

“We are at a standstill,” a Breeders’ Cup spokesman said this week. “Oak Tree was our first choice for ’92 and is our first choice, but we are still having disagreements.”

According to Ray Rogers, Oak Tree’s executive vice president, those disagreements relate to seating, ticket prices, marketing of the cup and quarantining foreign horses. Rogers and Cliff Goodrich, Santa Anita’s president, met with Ted Bassett, president of the Breeders’ Cup, last month.

“When we had the Breeders’ Cup last time, the ticket prices were the same as the regular season,” Rogers said. “Since then, the Breeders’ Cup people have changed their philosophy. They’ve had great success with that new philosophy, of course. I guess you can call it a standstill until a decision is made, but I still think we’re close to getting (a contract). I think something will happen in the next 10 days.”

The Breeders’ Cup spokesman said no other tracks are under consideration for the 1992 races while negotiations continue with Oak Tree. The 1991 Breeders’ Cup will be held at Churchill Downs.

Rogers is more immediately concerned with how business will be at the meeting that opens today. In the two years that Oak Tree’s races have been sent via satellite to several off-track betting centers, average daily on-track attendance has shrunk by more than 3,000, to just under 22,000 last year. Off-track business has more than compensated--overall, 28,475 people bet Oak Tree on the average last season, and the daily handle was a record $6.2 million--but track officials are still concerned about the erosion of the live crowds, who pay for admission and parking, and buy hotdogs and programs.

“We hope growth at the track will offset the people who are going to the off-track sites,” Rogers said. “I hope the on-track crowds come close to a 22,000 average, and we hope the off-track business grows, too.”

Starting today, Oak Tree’s handle was expected to grow from sources as far away as Alabama, but last Friday the California Horse Racing Board was unable to approve such interstate betting with one pari-mutuel pool because the item hadn’t been properly included on the board’s agenda.

The board will hold a special meeting in Los Angeles next Monday, when it is expected to approve an Oak Tree betting network that will include the Birmingham (Ala.) Race Course, Canterbury Downs in Minnesota and 14 race books in Nevada. Money bet at those locations will show up in the pools at Santa Anita, and payoffs will be the same at all sites. In the past, Las Vegas race books arbitrarily restricted how much could be bet and set limits on what longshot payoffs would be.

Horse Racing Notes

Hot Novel is the high weight, at 120 pounds, in today’s opening stake, the Autumn Days Handicap, which drew 15 horses, 14 of whom will start. Country Inn needs a scratch to be able to run. . . . The 6 1/2-furlong Autumn Days will be the first race on the hillside grass course since it was rebuilt with the same Netlon mesh surface that was installed on the main turf course a year ago.

Oak Tree will race Wednesday through Sunday during its 27-day season, with Monday cards next week and on Nov. 5, closing day. Post time today is 1 p.m. . . . Trainer Richard Mulhall, 51, apparently did not suffer a heart attack, but he remains in Arcadia Methodist Hospital, where a spokesperson would not comment on his condition. Mulhall needed hospital care while attending a horse auction at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., last month and, according to a Santa Anita spokesman, is suffering from a kidney infection and pneumonia.

R.D. Hubbard, who is trying to oust Marje Everett as chief operating officer at Hollywood Park, has told the California Horse Racing Board that he will not exercise an option to buy 25% of Los Alamitos, and will sell a small amount of stock that he holds in Santa Anita, if that is necessary for him to take an active role at Hollywood. Without those concessions, the board would have had to decide whether it could allow Hubbard, one of Hollywood Park’s largest shareholders, to be active at more than one California track.