Vegas Connection in Jeopardy as CHRB Challenges Racebooks

Two high-profile race sponsorships could be in jeopardy if the simulcasting impasse between the Nevada racebooks and Southern California tracks continues.

“Those MGM and Caesars deals might be nonexistent,” said Don Driscoll, director of the Nevada Pari-Mutuel Assn., which represents most of the racebooks in Las Vegas. The books have operated all season without telecasts of races from Hollywood Park, and the existing contract between Nevada and Santa Anita, signed last year, appears to be void because of recent intervention by the California Horse Racing Board. The Santa Anita meet opens a week from today.

Two of Las Vegas’ biggest hotel-casinos--the MGM Grand and Caesars Palace--sponsor major races at Southern California tracks. MGM Grand is in the second year of a five-year deal to sponsor a bonus series that includes the Santa Anita Handicap, the Hollywood Gold Cup and the Pacific Classic at Del Mar. A sweep by a horse, which didn’t happen this year, would have been worth $2 million, and recently that bonus was increased to $3 million for 1997. There is also a $500,000 bonus for the horse with the highest finishes in the three races if no horse sweeps them.

In 1995, Hollywood Park changed the name of the Sunset Handicap to the Caesars Palace Turf Championship after the Las Vegas hotel agreed to sponsor a two-race bonus series that started with the Caesars International in Atlantic City. Sandpit won both races that year to earn $1 million, which included a bonus of $280,000.

Executives at Caesars couldn’t be reached, and Jack Leone, a spokesman for MGM Grand, declined to speculate on what might happen.

“I can’t speak theoretically,” Leone said. “We have agreed to sponsor the races, and for now we plan on moving forward in that direction. There are options for both sides throughout the length of the contract.”

Racing, a sport with undesirable demographics, poor television ratings and a deep decline in on-track business, can ill afford to lose what sponsorships it has. Chrysler Corp. ended a nine-year association with the Triple Crown series and was replaced this year by Visa U.S.A. Racing’s year-end showcase, the Breeders’ Cup, lacked sponsors for three of its seven races this year.

Santa Anita is approaching the second year of a four-year contract with the Nevada racebooks, but the state racing board, at its meeting two weeks ago, said that it won’t approve operating licenses unless Southern California tracks receive a minimum of a 4.2% share of betting from Las Vegas. No California track received that much from the handle this year, and Cliff Goodrich, president of Santa Anita, said that his track’s contract calls for 3.5%.

“Nevada has been cherry-picking by playing one California racetrack against another,” said Ralph Scurfield, chairman of the racing board. “We’re going to do more things on a California basis.”

Driscoll said that the notion that the Nevada racebooks are all but printing money is a misconception.

“In 1981,” he said, “there were 18 independent [non-casino] racebooks in Las Vegas. There’s [zero] today, because none of them could turn a profit. The casinos’ racebooks exist only as amenities for the customers who support the casino games. The casinos offer racing to keep the player from going across the street to somebody else.”

During a 12-month period ending in November, Nevada racebooks kept $26.5 million as their share of the handle on California races.

“That’s a gross figure, not a net,” Driscoll said. “And it’s divided among about 50 books. By the time you factor in all of our expenses, the net is far less than that.”

During November, some racebooks offered re-creations of the races from Hollywood Park--a throwback to the illegal wire rooms of the 1930s, which Ray Walston did so wonderfully as the re-creation announcer in “The Sting”--and took bets on a non-parimutuel basis. About $5.6 million was bet on the Hollywood races, almost 15% of the total racing handle. The overall Nevada handle actually went up more than 4% from the previous November, to $38 million, as bettors gravitated to Aqueduct and the large fields--and better betting propositions--that were consistently offered by Churchill Downs.

With Santa Anita’s opener coming the day after Christmas, the racebooks hope to meet with Goodrich on Friday.

Horse Racing Notes

Rene Douglas and apprentice Nathan Chaves each won two races at Hollywood Park on Wednesday, moving into a fifth-place tie in the meet standings. Alex Solis leads with 33 wins. . . . Letting Hollywood Turf Cup winner Running Flame do what he does best, run in 1 1/2-mile races, trainer Mike Puype hopes to run him next in the $200,000 San Luis Obispo Handicap at Santa Anita on Feb. 17. . . . Ninth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, Dramatic Gold is scheduled to run Sunday, closing day at Hollywood Park, in the $100,000 Native Diver Handicap. One of his rivals will be Gentlemen, who switches to dirt from a grass win in the Citation Handicap. . . . The New York Racing Assn. has renamed its NYRA Mile the Cigar Mile. Cigar’s first stakes win came in the 1994 NYRA Mile, which was win No. 2 in his 16-race streak.