New Paper Will Make a Run at Racing Form

The international publishing battle between Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch has moved to the American horse racing front with the announcement Wednesday that the Racing Times, a new daily newspaper bankrolled by Maxwell, will make its debut a week from Friday.

The Racing Times will go head-to-head with the Daily Racing Form, the 96-year-old publication that Murdoch bought, along with TV Guide, from Walter Annenberg for $2.8 billion in 1988. The Form has outlasted other competitors in recent years, but it has never been challenged by someone with the resources of Maxwell, reputedly a billionaire and one of the richest people in Britain.

Maxwell and the Australian-born Murdoch are bitter rivals in Britain, where Maxwell publishes the Daily Mirror and Murdoch owns the Sun. They also compete in Germany and Hungary, and both are involved in American book publishing, Maxwell with Macmillan and Murdoch with Harper Collins.

Maxwell’s launching of the Racing Times comes in the wake of his purchase last month of the strike-ravaged New York Daily News. The flamboyant 67-year-old Maxwell is not new to racing; he also publishes the Sporting Life, Britain’s racing daily.

At press conferences Wednesday in New York and at the Santa Anita race track in Arcadia, it was announced that the Racing Times’ first issue would be sold April 12 for $2.50 a copy, the same price as the Racing Form. The Racing Times, which has editorial offices in New York, Gardena and Lexington, Ky., will make its debut at five major tracks, including Santa Anita and Aqueduct in New York, and will be available at 15 others within a month, according to Steve Crist, who was hired away from the New York Times to become editor-in-chief of the Racing Times.

The battle between the Racing Times and the Form is expected to be lively and sometimes personal. The Racing Times’ slogan is “Substance Over Form,” the pun entirely intended. The Form has geared up for the arrival of the Racing Times with numerous changes and has begun to pursue controversial stories.