THOROUGHBRED RACING : One of Hubbard’s Goals Is to Lure ‘Lost’ Fans Back to Hollywood Park

Even allowing for the start of off-track betting three years ago, Hollywood Park’s attendance drop--from an average of 31,000 in 1980 to less than 20,000 in recent seasons--is a stark decline.

One of R. D. Hubbard’s goals as the new president of the Inglewood track is to regain many of those lost customers.

Hubbard says he believes that the margin for error in succeeding is slight.

“I think in most cases that we’ve got one shot--one day--with every one of them,” he said. “If we don’t convince them in that one chance that Hollywood Park is worth coming back to, then we’ve lost them forever.”

In the 1950s and 1960s, Hollywood Park was the No. 1 track in California, and during one stretch it averaged 30,000 or more fans a day in 12 of 14 years. When Hubbard moved into his office in mid-February, shortly after a $10-million proxy fight led to the resignation of Marje Everett, one of the first things he did was dig into the archives to see what the track looked like during its heyday. Consequently, much of what the fans see when Hollywood opens April 24 will be a revival of concepts past.

One item is an enlarged, elevated winner’s circle in the area where the paddock used to be.

The paddock, which used to hide the horses from the crowd when they weren’t in the walking ring, has been moved behind the grandstand, as a 90-yard Figure 8-path shaded by elm and olive trees. A balcony, which Hubbard says has never been used, will give fans an elevated view of the horses being saddled, and there will be a large tote board and betting machines in the paddock area.

Because of the location of the new paddock, horses for the next race can be on their way in while horses that are racing are being led out to the track. It is a system designed to cut the time between races to 25 minutes, which would lop more than half an hour off the time it takes to run a full program.

In the clubhouse, for $5 admission, bettors will be able to sit in the Players’ Club, an area specializing in services for the serious handicapper. There are monitors that will continuously repeat the videos of the previous races, and there is a section in which a bettor can recall races from previous days for additional analysis. These features are not uncommon at Eastern tracks--in New York and Maryland, for example--but are breaking ground in Southern California.

The “Goose Girl,” who greeted fans from the infield before the Everett era, is being brought back. Candidates will be listed on a ballot in the program, and the winner will begin work at the fall meeting.

Hubbard will be adding about 350 television sets to the plant. Some of these will be put along the facade that overlooks the box-seat area, so that patrons there--many of them owners and trainers--will have the choice of watching the race live or on TV. The matrix board in the infield has been torn down so that the horses can be seen as they move down the backstretch.

Hubbard, facing a tight deadline in getting the track ready for opening day, says most of the work will be done on time. Sections of the grandstand will be renovated during the meeting. Hubbard hopes more fans will visit the dining room, where the rule requiring men to wear ties has been dropped.

Hollywood Park surveyed its audience last summer and learned at least two rather startling things: 80% of the track’s horseplayers come from an area within a 12-mile radius of the facility, and 35% of the bettors attend the track three or more times a week.

What that tells Hubbard is that inter-track betting with Santa Anita, which may happen by the end of the year if the state legislature cooperates, will probably be more of a boon to Hollywood Park than it will be to Santa Anita. A relatively small number of Hollywood Park’s fans come from the Santa Anita side of town, anyway.

Fly So Free, the future-book favorite for the Kentucky Derby, will shoot for his fourth consecutive victory this year against five rivals Saturday in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland.

He is listed as a 2-5 favorite, with only Strike the Gold given the remotest chance of springing an upset. Others running are Nowork All Play, Big Courage, Wilder Than Ever and Sir Otto.

Summer Squall, making his first start in six months, tied the track record for 6 1/2 furlongs Thursday at Keeneland in winning an allowance race by four lengths.

Summer Squall, last year’s Blue Grass and Preakness winner, was timed in 1:15 2/5, the fastest clocking at that distance since Ambassador’s Image set the track record in 1974. Summer Squall may run one more time at Keeneland before heading for the Pimlico Special, his first major goal of the year, May 11.

Summer Squall’s toughest opposition at Pimlico is likely to come out of Saturday’s Oaklawn Handicap, the Arkansas race that includes Unbridled, carrying 124 pounds, Farma Way at 122 and Jolie’s Halo at 120. Unbridled is listed as the 9-5 favorite, with Farma Way at 5-2 and Jolie’s Halo at 3-1.

This is a collision of intersectional rivals, with Farma Way leading the handicap ranks in California and Unbridled and Jolie’s Halo arriving from Florida.

Horse Racing Notes

Best Pal and Dinard will be on the same plane for Louisville Monday, with their third meeting scheduled to be the Kentucky Derby on May 4. Dinard beat Best Pal by half a length in each of their races at Santa Anita. . . . Olympio and Sea Cadet have been made eligible for the Triple Crown races, at a cost of $4,500 apiece, with their owner, Verne Winchell, and their trainer, Ron McAnally, leaning toward the Preakness on May 18 instead of the Derby. Olympio runs a week from Saturday in the Arkansas Derby, with Eddie Delahoussaye aboard.

Sea Cadet has been nominated for the Derby Trial, which is run the Saturday before the Derby at Churchill Downs, and if something would happen to the two favorites, Fly So Free and Dinard, he may still get into the Derby. . . . Worst headline of the week: “Shoemaker Never Made It to Dinner” in USA Today. . . . The most confused jockey at Santa Anita last Saturday was Jerry Bailey, who came all the way to California to ride Scan for his sorry fifth-place run in the Santa Anita Derby while horses he had been riding, Kyle’s Our Man and Shoot To Kill, were winning stakes in the East.

Split Run is the favorite Saturday at Golden Gate Fields in the California Derby, which is not likely to produce any serious Kentucky Derby contenders. . . . Housebuster, routed by Unbridled at Gulfstream Park this year, runs today in the seven-furlong Deputy Minister Stakes at Keeneland. . . . Some scenes in a new Robert De Niro film are being shot at Santa Anita.