THOROUGHBRED RACING : Less May Be More in the Long Run for Local Tracks

Santa Anita officials are studying the possibility of conducting races four days a week instead of five or reducing the number of daily live races from nine to eight in an attempt to alleviate horse shortages that led to small fields during the most recent meeting.

“We’re going to look at it from top to bottom and from everybody’s perspective (including the California Horse Racing Board and horsemen),” said Mark Stephens, Santa Anita’s director of marketing. “Conceptually, several of us all think that fewer, more quality programs would do more good for the sport. The goal of this is bigger fields.

“It would have to work from everybody’s perspective. If we didn’t have the cooperation of all three major entities, it wouldn’t happen.”

Track President Cliff Goodrich said Santa Anita isn’t alone among local tracks in its thinking. “(This concept) is in the air,” he said. “We’re exploring this idea because we’re trying to do everything we can to improve the quality of the product.

“The quality of the product is our foremost concern. A reduction of dates is one of the ways the quality can be improved and there are many other ways as well.”

Less racing would result in larger fields, which would lead to increased handles. Races with six horses or fewer are unattractive to bettors and, because of a shrinking horse supply and a staggering number of racing dates (281 on the local thoroughbred circuit this year), they have become more common. The problem was evident at the end of Santa Anita’s 90-day winter-spring meeting.

Plans being considered include five-day weeks with eight-race cards and four-day weeks with nine races on two weekdays and 10 races on the weekends. The first proposal would decrease the number of weekly races from 45 to 40; the latter to 38.

With a four-day week, Santa Anita would probably run Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Thursday-Sunday or Friday-Monday.

“Off the top of my head, the most attractive would be Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” Stephens said. “It would set Wednesday aside, you could have a stakes race that day and (the dark day on Thursday) would also help Friday.”

R.D. Hubbard, Hollywood Park’s chief operating officer, has campaigned for fewer dates in the past and last year the track concluded its fall meeting on Dec. 20, rather than Christmas Eve as before.

Del Mar, which begins its seven-week season on July 27, has also discussed cutting back to eight races a day. There are no changes planned for the upcoming meeting, said Dan Smith, the track’s director of media and marketing,

Del Mar, which will apply for its 1994 license at the CHRB meeting later this month, will follow its normal Wednesday-Monday schedule with nine live races a day.

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Trainer David Bernstein and owner Phil Hersh will not run The Wicked North in the $150,000 Mervyn LeRoy Handicap on Sunday.

The nation’s top handicap horse will wait for the $300,000 Californian on June 5 before coming back in the $750,000 Hollywood Gold Cup on July 2.

“We only nominated him (to the LeRoy) because he was doing so well,” Bernstein said. “But after looking at the situation, we’ve decided to pass.

“First of all, it would have been his third race in seven weeks, and he also has a minor skin infection that he picked up back East. It isn’t a serious thing, and he hasn’t missed any training because of it. We’re treating him with antibiotics and he’s fine. He’ll work again Sunday.

“The Gold Cup is our major objective. The overall program just adds up to running in the Californian and then the Gold Cup.”

Horse Racing Notes

Patchy Groundfog, who was the last horse Bill Shoemaker rode on Feb. 3, 1990, will run for the first time since June 24, 1991 in today’s fifth race, a $32,000 claimer at 5 1/2 furlongs. The 11-year-old son of Instrument Landing, who has earned more than $700,000 in a 67-race career, will be ridden by Corey Black. . . . Jockey Corey Nakatani, who broke an ankle in a spill at Santa Anita on April 2, will return to riding on May 18, according to agent Bob Meldahl. . . . The match race between Lazor and Soviet Problem at Golden Gate Fields will be shown between the sixth and seventh races today at Hollywood Park. . . . Valiant Nature, who nearly fell on the first turn of the Kentucky Derby, then finished 13th, is expected back at Hollywood Park today. . . . Soul Of The Matter, who finished a troubled fifth in the Derby, returned Tuesday and he could race again in the Affirmed Handicap on July 2 and the Swaps on July 23.