Back On Track

Average daily on-track attendance has dropped about 45% during this decade, and opening-day crowds of fewer than 40,000 are now met with shrugs rather than frowns. Yet Frank Stronach has plowed an estimated $20 million into Santa Anita since he bought the track a year ago.

Stronach has also bought four other tracks, from Florida to Northern Californian, bringing to $332 million his up-front investments in racing properties. His plans for the others--Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, Fla., Thistledown in Cleveland, Remington Park in Tulsa, Okla., and Golden Gate Fields in Albany, Calif.--also include an upgrading of the race-going experience, though not on the grandiose scale that he has blueprinted for Santa Anita.

From one perspective, Stronach would seem to be a visionary with myopia, an entrepreneur who is behind the times. After all, the bar has been lowered by racetrack managements nationwide, their market shares fragmented by customer indifference and gambling competition as they scramble, through simulcasting and nascent plans for at-home betting, to pump plasma into a sputtering game.

There are the Triple Crown races and the Breeders’ Cup--racing’s last great innovative concept--and then there are the 361 other days of the year at the track.

Step by step, Stronach seeks to reverse the on-track doldrums and return to Santa Anita the excitement of yore, when a day at the track was a special event, a memorable occasion that encouraged a customer to come back for more.

Today is Santa Anita’s 63rd opener, and the second under the Stronach regime, as the wealthy industrialist unveils another multimillion-dollar feature: A gourmet restaurant with more than 500 seats overlooking the track and a bar that only seems to be as long as the stretch at Churchill Downs.

The FrontRunner restaurant won’t pass a spelling check, but Stronach appears to have his priorities in line. Earlier this year, the new owner moved to placate the $2 bettor first, installing a giant, high-definition TV screen in the infield and rebuilding the apron in front of the grandstand. If he’s not intent on forming a Society of Born-Again Horseplayers, he’s giving it a pretty good try.

Such extravagance for the on-track customer still seems quaint, but Stronach is undeterred.

“We’ve spent a fair amount of money so far, and we plan to spend more,” he said. “We want to prove to the California horse-racing community that we are committed to the game. We are committed to live racing. What would football be if the game was played in empty stadiums and only watched by people on TV? People would lose interest. If we neglect live horse racing, it will be the end of the sport.”

The on-track figures at Santa Anita speak for themselves. In 1990, crowds averaged more than 23,000 daily, but there has been rapid erosion since then, to last season, when the daily average was in the 12,000 range for the fourth consecutive year.

“I would like to restore the daily attendance to its old grandeur,” Stronach said. “Once we complete the entertainment center that will be part of the track, I’m optimistic that we can expect a rise of 20% to 30% in the on-track crowds. All of this is going to take time--several years--but we believe we can do it.”

The momentum of an opening day is important, and trainer Wayne Lukas’ Christmas present to Santa Anita is Cat Thief, a year-long underachiever who took about two minutes in Florida last month to ditch his has-been status.

A 19-1 shot with only one win in 11 starts in 1999, Cat Thief won the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Gulfstream Park and returns to action today in the Malibu Stakes. That’s the opener of the three-race Strub series, for foals of 1996, that continues with the San Fernando on Jan. 15 and concludes with the Strub Stakes on Feb. 5. Only five horses have ever swept the series, Precisionist being the most recent in 1985.

“The Malibu isn’t the ideal distance for my horse,” Lukas said. “I wish it was a mile and a sixteenth instead of seven furlongs, but you have to start someplace and if there’s speed up front, we should be competitive. The longer distances will be more to our liking, and it’d be nice if we could win that series.”

First-hand, Stronach knows that good horses help bring good crowds. His breeding-racing operation of some 900 horses is a coast-to-coast business that has produced the champion filly Glorious Song; the Belmont Stakes winner Touch Gold; and Awesome Again, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic in 1998. The Stronach colorbearer Golden Missile was third at Gulfstream, less than two lengths behind Cat Thief, and Stronach’s stable leads the country in purses this year with more than $6 million.

Despite all of his lofty intentions, Stronach is not roundly embraced by the racing industry and his growing clout has made some segments of the sport nervous. Trainers of his horses have come and gone, and so have many in the executive suite at Santa Anita. For all of his success as a captain of industry, he is an impulsive, seat-of-the-pants operator who sometimes overplays his hand. Some of his radical plans, such as deep-sixing the downhill turf course at Santa Anita, have backfired and been dashed. The two new elevator towers have disturbed the Los Angeles Conservancy, which fears that the track will lose much of its original character.

“All I want to do is make the place nicer,” Stronach said. “These are a couple of concrete pillars, that’s all. I think the 1/8City of Arcadia 3/8 has been very cooperative.”

The morning of the last Breeders’ Cup, Stronach scheduled a news conference at Gulfstream, the track he bought in July in a $95-million deal. After 45 minutes, an aide at the lectern was trying to ease his boss toward the door, but Stronach preferred to stay. Before he was through, he sharply criticized the National Thoroughbred Racing Assn., an industry-wide marketing group that’s budgeted to spend more than $30 million in 2000. Much of the NTRA support comes from the country’s tracks. The five Stronach tracks pay about $1.2 million in annual dues.

“What I said at the Breeders’ Cup was distorted,” Stronach said in a recent interview. “I wanted what I said to be constructive.”

Last week, though, he released a copy of a letter to the NTRA that largely reiterated what he had said in Florida. In the letter, he said: “I believe a new, more democratic approach to governance should be adopted which reflects the interests of all stakeholders. Therefore, the 1/8NTRA 3/8 board should be democratically elected and not self-perpetuating. It is equally important for the NTRA to advocate a legislative and regulatory framework that promotes free enterprise . . . . To succeed, the horse-racing industry must be able to operate on the same free enterprise basis as its competition.”

Stronach’s tracks may resign from the NTRA by mid-January. In the interview, he was more specific about the NTRA.

“Their mandate should be redefined,” he said. “I don’t want this to wind up like a club. We’ve already had too many clubs in racing.”

Horse Racing Notes

Santa Anita’s schedule is mostly Wednesday through Sunday, but the track will be open four Mondays, the first of which will be this Monday. . . . For the first time, the meet will have two $1-million races, the Santa Anita Handicap March 4 and the Santa Anita Derby April 8. The Santa Anita Derby, previously worth $750,000, becomes the richest prep race for the Kentucky Derby. The last three winners of the Kentucky Derby--Charismatic, Real Quiet and Silver Charm--ran in the Santa Anita Derby. . . . “The Santa Anita Handicap has taken some hits in recent years because of the Dubai World Cup,” said Lonny Powell, who became president of Santa Anita in June. “But we still think the Big ‘Cap deserves marquee status, and now, with the added purse money, we’re happy to give the Santa Anita Derby co-marquee status.” . . . Gary Stevens, returning from knee surgery, will ride Desert Hero in the Malibu. Desert Hero is also making a comeback, not having run since he was last in the Swaps at Hollywood Park in July. The Swaps and the Breeders’ Cup Classic are the only two races Cat Thief has won this year. . . . Finalists for horse of the year are Artax, Charismatic and Daylami. Artax (Sprint) and Daylami (Turf) were Breeders’ Cup winners, and Charismatic’s career ended because of an injury in the Belmont Stakes after he won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. The winner will be announced at the Eclipse Awards dinner at the Beverly Hilton on Jan. 17. . . . Asked about buying more tracks, Frank Stronach said: “There’s a chance I might add a few more, but it would be too premature to talk about where they might be. There are no negotiations going on at this time.”

Santa Anita Facts

* Dates: Today-April 24.

* First post:

1 p.m. today

* Major races: $1 million Santa Anita Handicap (March 4); $1 million Santa Anita Derby (April 8).