Hollywood Park Opens Its Meet With Changes Brewing

With agents from Churchill Downs skulking around, kicking the tractor tires and checking the barn roofs for leaks, Hollywood Park may have an ownership change before the spring-summer season is too far along.

The 66-day meet opens tonight under the stewardship of chairman R.D. Hubbard, but Churchill Downs is in the wings, hoping to make a deal. The Louisville track, which will run the 125th Kentucky Derby a week from Saturday, announced April 1 that it was trying to buy Hollywood Park.

Hubbard was away from his office Thursday and couldn’t be reached. One of the sale delays might be the price. Hollywood Park is reportedly asking close to $150 million, which is more than Santa Anita sold for in December and almost double what Churchill Downs paid for Calder Race Course, the South Florida track it bought in January.

Many of the players in these transactions have had overlapping interests. Frank Stronach bought Santa Anita, for $126 million, after Churchill’s bid fell short; Stronach looked at Hollywood before Churchill came along; Stronach has even had a passing interest in Hialeah, one of the tracks on the same Florida circuit as Calder.

Stronach didn’t want to say, but apparently he lost interest in Hollywood Park after the price went higher than Santa Anita’s. He is not necessarily finished buying tracks, he says now, but he probably won’t make another run at Hollywood, even if the Churchill Downs deal doesn’t go through.

Whatever happens at Hollywood Park, gone are the days when the track’s parent company, Hollywood Park Inc., will go shopping for other tracks. Not that many years ago, Hollywood Park was very close to buying Pimlico, the Baltimore track that runs the Preakness, the second leg in the Triple Crown. But Pimlico remained with the De Francis family, and now the corporate strategy at Hollywood Park is driven by casinos and riverboats, not horses.

Hubbard, a horse owner and breeder, came on board in 1991, the survivor in a bitter proxy battle with Marje Everett. In 1994, Hubbard opened a casino on the grounds, just a crap shoot away from the winner’s circle, which antagonized racing traditionalists, but during his tenure the racetrack has undergone several much-needed improvement programs and the company, which struggled to break even in the late 1980s, has shown modest profits in recent years.

Associates of Hubbard say he is weary of the day-to-day responsibilities of running a track. He will be remembered as an executive whose arrival was timely. The ship was listing badly when he came through the door.

This Hollywood Park meet, instead of focusing on a heavy schedule of Friday nights, which were designed to bring new, younger fans to the sport, will go in another direction. Tonight’s 7 o’clock card will be one of only five Friday-night programs; most first posts will be at noon, so the live racing schedule can better interface with the full-card simulcasts that became a reality in California this year. Hollywood Park will import out-of-state races from New York (Aqueduct and Belmont Park) and Kentucky (Keeneland, Churchill Downs and Ellis Park) during the season, which runs through July 19.

The richest race of the meet, and the one with the most prestige, is the $1-million Sempra Energy Hollywood Gold Cup, which will be run June 27.

Horse Racing Notes

Trainer Charlie Whittingham, whose funeral services are at noon today at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Arcadia, will be honored at Hollywood Park over the weekend. Flags will be at half-staff and there will be a tribute Saturday. Of Whittingham’s more than 630 stakes wins, 222 came at Hollywood Park, where he won 859 races in all. . . . Tonight’s feature is the Senorita Stakes for 3-year-old fillies. The field includes Aviate and Open Secret, who ran 1-2 in the La Habra at Santa Anita on March 17.

At Churchill Downs on Thursday, trainer Bob Baffert said he might cross-enter the filly Excellent Meeting when entries are taken next Wednesday for the Kentucky Derby and the Kentucky Oaks. “It would be a kind of insurance,” Baffert said. “Insurance against General Challenge drawing a bad post in the Derby.” Both Excellent Meeting and General Challenge are owned by John and Betty Mabee. The Derby is a week from Saturday and the Oaks, restricted to 3-year-old fillies, will be run a week from today. If Baffert cross-enters Excellent Meeting and still runs her in the Oaks, that could possibly squeeze out one of the colts from running in the Derby. The Derby is limited to 20, with preference given to horses with the highest earnings in graded stakes races. The Daily Racing Form is listing 26 possibles for the Derby. Of the 26, Excellent Meeting ranks second in graded earnings with $1.1 million. Unlike many stakes, there is no also-eligible list for the Derby, which means a horse can’t draw in if another horse scratches.

Baffert’s two Derby-bound colts worked Thursday. Prime Timber went six furlongs in 1:12 3/5 and about an hour later General Challenge was clocked in 1:12. . . . Chris Antley, who won with Strike The Gold in 1991, has been named to ride Charismatic in this Derby. . . . Robbie Davis picked up the assignment on Ecton Park. . . . Kent Desormeaux will ride Aljabr, the colt from Dubai, unless Baffert changes his mind and runs his other filly, Silverbulletday, in the Derby. Then Desormeaux would ride the filly.

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Hollywood Park Facts

* When: Today through July 19 (66 days).

* Racing: Wednesday through Sunday; Special Monday racing on May 31, July 5 and July 19.

* Post time: Noon every day, except for 7 p.m. tonight, June 25, July 2, July 9 and July 16.

* Significant races: $150,000 Mervyn LeRoy Handicap (May 1), $300,000 Californian (May 29), $400,000 Charles Whittingham Memorial Handicap (May 31), $250,000 Milady Breeders’ Cup Handicap (May 31), $350,000 Shoemaker Breeders’ Cup Mile (June 13), $500,000 Vanity Handicap (June 26), $1-million Hollywood Gold Cup (June 27), $300,000 Beverly Hills Handicap (July 3), $200,000 Hollywood Oaks (July 17), $300,000 Sunset Handicap and $500,000 Swaps Stakes (July 18).

* Admission prices: General admission, $6; Clubhouse, $9; Turf Club, $25 (Includes parking and program).