Hollywood Park’s Turn in the Test Tube : Horse racing: Intertrack-wagering experiment moves to Inglewood today.

On Nov. 2, the day Hollywood Park piped in seven Breeders’ Cup races from Churchill Downs and eight more from Santa Anita, nearly 8,000 fans showed up at the Inglewood track to bet $2.6 million. Last Saturday, Hollywood Park drew 6,500 who bet $1.3 million on 10 races--the nine-race California Cup program from Santa Anita and a stake from Bay Meadows.

Many tracks around the country would be comfortable doing business like this every day for live racing. Now Hollywood Park has its own fall season, starting today, and if the recent on-track figures at Santa Anita are any indication, there will be days when Hollywood doesn’t draw as many people for real horses as it did for the Breeders’ Cup and the California Cup.

This is the disadvantage of intertrack wagering. Marketing strategies must change, and the trick is to keep the live customers coming, even while a track’s races can be bet and watched on television across town.

Santa Anita, which was the guinea pig for close-in off-track betting with its Oak Tree meeting, must have pressed some of the right buttons last Saturday. A crowd of almost 40,000 went to Santa Anita to watch nothing but California-breds run, and a total of 24,000 showed up at Hollywood Park, Los Alamitos, Del Mar and 13 other satellite facilities. Racing had the best of both worlds, good crowds at home and away, at least for a day.

The unnerving aspect of intertrack betting is that on-track attendance for the Oak Tree season averaged close to 16,000 a day, the lowest for Santa Anita’s fall meeting since Oak Tree Racing Assn. arrived in 1969-70. The drop was offset by off-track business, leaving Oak Tree with a daily attendance average of 30,417, its highest ever--but track executives all over the Southland are still wary.

While the horses run at Hollywood for a 32-day season that ends on Dec. 24, betting on the Inglewood races will be conducted at Santa Anita, Los Alamitos and Fairplex Park in Pomona for the first time.

“It’s going to take some time to assess what we have,” said Tom Gamel, an executive vice president and major stockholder at Hollywood Park.

“Already there’s been talk that we’re just moving the (betting) money around, not adding to what we already had. I don’t believe that’s necessarily true. Let’s see how this thing shakes down. The recession is hurting tracks everywhere. Maybe without intertrack betting, Santa Anita’s numbers would have been way off instead of being slightly up.”

Overall, including on-track and off-track figures, Oak Tree’s daily attendance average increased by nearly 8%. Its handle increased by only 2%, and would have been down but for the national-record $15.8 million that was bet on Breeders’ Cup day.

Hollywood Park has spent $18 million on improvements since R.D. Hubbard unseated Marje Everett as chief executive officer last February. Some of the changes include a restoration of the lakes-and-flower infield and the return of the Goose Girl, a park area for families, remodeling in the clubhouse and turf club and six new barns that can handle 670 horses.

The season’s priorities have shifted on the track, with $1.725 million in purse money being offered for nine grass stakes, $1.45 million for nine dirt stakes. The height of grass activity will be on Thanksgiving weekend, with five grass stakes jammed into three days. The $500,000 Hollywood Turf Cup, the richest grass race of the season, is scheduled for Dec. 15.

The purse for the Turf Cup hasn’t changed, but the pots for the two premier stakes for 2-year-olds--the Starlet and the Futurity--have been halved. The $250,000 Starlet for fillies is scheduled for Dec. 21, and the Futurity, which had been a $1-million race since 1983, will be run for $500,000 the next day. The $1-million purse seldom brought Eastern horses to Inglewood. Except for Stephan’s Odyssey in 1984, all of the winners have been local horses.

The season will start modestly, with seven 2-year-old fillies entered in today’s $107,250 Moccasin Breeders’ Cup Stakes.

Horse Racing Notes

Hollywood Park’s racing schedule: Wednesdays through Sundays, plus Monday, Dec. 23 and Tuesday, Dec. 24. . . . Post time is 12:30 p.m., except on Thanksgiving, Nov. 28, and Christmas Eve, when the first race will be run at 11 a.m. . . . There will be nine races on weekdays, 10 races on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. . . . The first major stake of the season will be the $200,000 Hollywood Derby, a 1 1/8-mile grass race, on Sunday.

A HOLLYWOOD MAKEOVER

Hollywood Park begins its 32-day fall meeting today with a new look. As part of an $18-million reconstruction project begun after the spring/summer meeting, there have been substantial changes to the infield, grandstands, clubhouse and barn area in addition to new features. NEW GARDEN PADDOCK: New to the track, a European walking ring and saddling paddock, with tote boards, has been built in the plaza area outside the grandstand. Horses can be viewed before they run from surrounding walkways or a balcony on the grandstand. MAIN BUILDING: The interior of the building, containing the grandstand, clubhouse and Turf Club, has undergone extensive renovations. The general admission area under the grandstand has been repainted in beige rather than the dark blue of past years; a new players’ club on the first floor of the clubhouse is geared for serious horseplayers with large television screens and writing tables. NORTH PARK: At the north end of the grandstands, a new all-grass family area includes a playground, concession stands and betting windows. There will be entertainment for children during the summer. INFIELD: Probably the area with the most visible changes is in the infield. Two large lakes, linked by a canal, have been added and are accompanied by waterfalls. The lakes hold 5 million gallons of water and will be surrounded by 100,000 flowers. Grassy picnic areas behind the lakes are being built. The landscaping is still in progress. BARN AREA: Six new barns have been built, including 670 stalls. There are 18 barns with 1,958 stalls, 619 tack rooms, 216 feed rooms and accommodations for 489 grooms.