Trying to Get Race Fans Back on Track

The Breeders’ Cup is more than six months away, but the mere prospect of hosting racing’s seven-race, $11-million day for the first time since 1987 has Hollywood Park in a buoyant mood as the Inglewood track opens its 58th spring-summer meet with a nine-race card tonight.

“It should be a great year,” said R.D. Hubbard, the track’s chairman and biggest shareholder. “By the end of the year, we’ll have offered more than $21 million in stakes purses, counting Breeders’ Cup day. We’ve done some things with a few of our most important stakes that should make them even more attractive for the top horses. And our goal hasn’t changed--we’re striving to improve our on-track business.”

Off-track betting, introduced in California in 1987, has been a double-edged sword, boosting overall business but severely decreasing on-track attendance. At the spring-summer stand a year ago, Hollywood Park averaged just more than 11,000 customers a day, lowest in track history. The daily betting handle hit the $10.4-million mark, setting a track record, but 77% of that was off-track, at satellite locations that share in the profits.

Hollywood Park’s opening meet will run for 66 days and nights, through July 21. Del Mar, Fairplex Park and the Oak Tree Racing Assn. at Santa Anita take over after that, with Hollywood Park reopening on Nov. 5, just in time for Breeders’ Cup day on Nov. 8.

The $1-million Hollywood Gold Cup, the linchpin for the current meet, has undergone a major change, going from a handicap race to one run under weight-for-age conditions. Horses such as Affirmed, Ack Ack, Swaps and Seabiscuit carried 130 pounds and more to win the Gold Cup, but those days are no more, and in fact they never recently existed in practice, anyway. Now, instead of the racing secretary assigning weights based on recent performances, all of the older horses, 4 years and up, will carry 124 pounds (though there are allowances if 3-year-olds or females are entered). Even as a handicap, the Gold Cup was won by horses carrying less than 124 in 12 of the last 14 years.

“Believe me, unless there’s a huge spread in the weights, it doesn’t make any difference what horses carry,” jockey Chris McCarron said. “A few pounds here or there aren’t going to matter. The way horses are weighted these days, weights are only something that trainers talk about when they think they’ve been weighted too high for a race.”

McCarron has won 11 Hollywood Park riding titles, and he ranks eighth nationally this year, riding horses that have earned $2.8 million, but he won’t ride tonight. McCarron is taking at least one extra day off to rest a shoulder that was injured in a spill at Santa Anita last Sunday.

Alex Solis also isn’t riding tonight, but he’s expected to be the same force he has been in Southern California for a year now. Solis won 69 races to finish No. 1 at this meet last year, and he hasn’t been unseated since, adding major seasonal titles for Del Mar, Oak Tree, Hollywood Park in the fall and the Santa Anita meet that ended Monday. Since Southern California went to five major meets a year in 1981, the record belongs to McCarron, who won six consecutive titles in 1982-83.

Trainer Richard Mandella, another horseman who favors weight-for-age conditions, will try to repeat in this year’s Gold Cup with Siphon, positioned to become the first consecutive winner of the race since Native Diver’s three in a row in 1965-67. Mandella’s bulging barn of runners was reduced by one this week with the retirement of Atticus, but he still has Sandpit, a grass specialist who has taken to dirt, and Gentlemen, a house horse who will hit the road soon. Owned by a partnership that includes Hubbard, Gentlemen is scheduled to run in the Pimlico Special on May 10 and the Massachusetts Handicap at Suffolk Downs on May 31.

Atticus suffered a bone chip in his right foreleg and was retired after winning the Oaklawn Handicap on dirt and running a world-record mile on grass in 1:31 4/5 at Santa Anita.

The Gold Cup is part of a stakes triple-header on June 29. The first major stake, the $400,000 Hollywood Turf Handicap, could draw Sandpit and Marlin on May 26, and there’s another three-stake day on July 20, when the Sunset and Vanity handicaps, each worth $400,000, and the $100,000 Hollywood Juvenile will be run. The $500,000 Swaps will be run July 13, a new spot. It’s now scheduled five weeks after the Belmont Stakes and three weeks before the Haskell at Monmouth Park. Racing secretary Martin Panza hopes that the Swaps better serves out-of-town and Southern California horses, the 3-year-olds that have something left after having been to the Triple Crown wars.

Horse Racing Notes

Cliff Goodrich, president of Santa Anita, estimates that the absence of a TV signal in Nevada cost his track and its horsemen about $1.5 million in revenue at the recently concluded meet. Hollywood Park has made an offer to the Nevada race books of a 3 1/2% commission on win, place and show bets and 4% on exotic wagers. Approval by the books as well as the Thoroughbred Owners of California is required. A year ago, Nevada’s share of betting at Hollywood was 3 1/2% on all wagers. . . . Tonight’s feature, the Senorita Stakes, has drawn Ascutney and Wealthy, who were 1-2 in the Miesque in November at Hollywood. Since then, Ascutney has run two lackluster races in Florida and Wealthy has won one of five starts. Another contender, Famous Digger, is a $40,000 Barry Abrams claim who won the Providencia Stakes at Santa Anita on April 6. . . . Louis Quatorze, winner of the Ben Ali Stakes at Keeneland on Wednesday, will have surgery to remove a bone chip in his left-front ankle, trainer Nick Zito said.

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Hollywood Park Facts

What: 58th spring-summer meeting.

Where: Hollywood Park in Inglewood.

Dates: Tonight through July 21 (66 dates). Racing is generally Wednesday through Sunday, with Friday cards being held at night, except on July 4 (1 p.m.), and Monday cards on May 26, June 9 and July 21.

First post time: Daytime cards generally will start at 1 p.m., Friday night cards at 7 p.m. The first simulcast race on the day of the Kentucky Derby (May 3) will be at 9:20 a.m. The starting time for the Kentucky Derby is 2:30 p.m.

MAKING THE GRADE

Grade I races during the Hollywood Park spring-summer meeting: *--*

Date Event Purse May 26 Hollywood Turf Handicap $400,000 June 1 Gamely Handicap $200,000 June 22 Milady Breeders’ Cup Handicap $200,000 June 29 Hollywood Gold Cup $1,000,000 Beverly Hills Handicap $300,000 July 20 Vanity Handicap $400,000

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