Japanese Ownership Creates Furor in Florida : Horse racing: After sale of two major thoroughbred tracks, some officials want to prohibit foreign investors.

The recent sale of two of the three major thoroughbred race tracks in South Florida is being questioned by a state legislative committee because the new owners are Japanese.

“There is a lot of animosity about the sale of those two tracks,” said Rep. Jim King (R-Jacksonville), who serves on Florida’s seven-member Parimutuel Oversight Committee. “What’s happening with the Seattle Mariners will only give us impetus to act more rapidly. The Seattle situation has added fuel to a smoldering fire.”

Japanese investors have offered $100 million to buy the Mariner baseball team, but the purchase, if made, might not be approved by other baseball club owners, according to Commissioner Fay Vincent.

In late December, separate Japanese companies assumed control of Gulfstream Park and Calder Race Course in the Miami area after Bert Firestone, the American horse owner and breeder who had bought the tracks a few years ago, was unable to meet mortgage payments.

Firestone sold Gulfstream to the Orient Corp. and Calder was sold to the Kawasaki Leasing Co. The price for each track was estimated to be more than $80 million. Firestone and his wife, Diana, raced Genuine Risk, who in 1980 became the second of three fillies to win the Kentucky Derby.

The Firestones have also sold their Catoctin Farm in Waterford, Va., to Japanese interests and recently conducted a dispersal sale of much of their breeding stock.

In 1988, the Firestones bought Calder from the estate of W.L. McKnight with a $90-million loan from Kawasaki. In 1990, the Firestones bought Gulfstream from the Donn family with an $80-million loan from a Japanese bank, with the Orient Corp. as guarantor.

The other major South Florida track is Hialeah, which is run by John Brunetti through a long-term lease with the City of Hialeah. Under Brunetti, Hialeah has struggled, closing at one point, and for years he has fought with Gulfstream and Calder over the best winter racing dates.

Gulfstream, which held the Breeders’ Cup in 1989, is scheduled to stage the event again this year, on Oct. 31.

Doug Donn, who remained at Gulfstream after Firestone bought the track from his family, became president and chief executive officer when the Orient Corp. took over. Donn said Friday that the Breeders’ Cup is not in jeopardy, and questioned whether the state legislature would be able to revoke the sale of Gulfstream to the Japanese.

“This is a different situation than the one in Seattle,” Donn said. “The owners of Gulfstream already own the track, and they can’t be forced to divest themselves of it. I find it interesting that the reason tracks in Florida are struggling is because of inaction by the state legislature. The very same legislators who are looking at this sale are the ones partly responsible for the overtaxing of the sport. Their attitude (toward the Japanese buying Gulfstream) is just a reaction to the events of the day.”

It is too late for the state legislature to pass a bill that would affect foreign ownership of race tracks, King said, but it would be able to pass an amendment to existing legislation.

“What we didn’t like was how quickly Gulfstream and Calder changed hands,” King said. “The legislature wasn’t aware of what was happening.

“Getting licensed to conduct racing in Florida isn’t a right, it’s a privilege. We’re uncomfortable that two of the three major tracks are license holders from foreign countries. Racing is highly regulated and controlled, and we just can’t have a track’s control in another country.”

King said that if the legislature is successful in banning the Japanese ownership, he expects a Constitutional challenge.

“I don’t see how Florida can distinguish from different foreign interests,” Donn said. “Is Ladbroke any different in California? Do Japanese hold any stock in Santa Anita? This is just another classic case of a state interfering with the marketplace.”

Ladbroke Racing Corp. of London owns Detroit Race Course and Golden Gate Fields near San Francisco.