Stronach Has the Early Lead in This Evenly Matched Race

Frank Stronach says there is no rivalry between his racing empire and Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby.

But what does he know?

Last year, Churchill Downs coveted Santa Anita, made a concerted bid for the track and lost out to Stronach, who bought the place for $126 million.

Churchill Downs settled for Hollywood Park, which was sold for $140 million after Stronach passed. He said the asking price was too high, adding: “There are other racetracks.”

Churchill Downs also made a run at Gulfstream Park, but again Stronach got in the way. The South Florida track was sold this week to Stronach for $95 million.

Churchill Downs’ consolation prize in the same market is Calder Race Course, which the Kentucky track bought in January for $86 million.

As the smoke clears from these all-out buying sprees, Stronach should be standing there, licking his chops. He has cornered the choice winter racing dates on both coasts--Dec. 26 through mid-April at Santa Anita and the January-March meet at Gulfstream. On anybody’s list of the most desirable tracks in the country, Santa Anita and Gulfstream Park would rank in the top five.

Yet Stronach resists gloating. He sidestepped the suggestion that he has left Churchill Downs in the starting gate.

“Churchill Downs is good for racing, and we’re good for racing,” he said. “There might be some competition, but it will be healthy. We will both serve the industry, and that’s what matters. I hope Churchill does well, because the way racing is now [with simulcasting], we’ll get a cut out of everything they do.”

Stronach cleaned house at Santa Anita, replacing Cliff Goodrich, the track president, with Lonny Powell, who at 39 is getting his first chance at running a major track. Powell has brought in some of his own people from Turf Paradise in Phoenix, one of the victims at Santa Anita being Tom Robbins, the vice president for racing. Goodrich and Robbins had given Santa Anita combined service of almost 40 years.

“We needed a whole new approach,” Stronach said. “I have great respect for Cliff, and I hope we’re still friends. He’s got an honorary lifetime membership at Santa Anita as far as I’m concerned. But for every 20 people there, 10 could have been doing the same job, so when you have that kind of a situation, what are you going to do?”

Powell is the son of a jockey who studied racetrack management in college and worked for years in racing’s hinterlands. If the rest of racing had made book on Goodrich’s replacement, Powell would have been at least 100-1, but that’s neither here nor there for Stronach.

“Lonny comes highly recommended,” Stronach said. “He’s done well wherever he’s been, and he’s worked his way from the bottom up. That’s important to me.”

Stronach’s track-buying foray may not be over. There are other tracks around, such as Golden Gate Fields near San Francisco and Monmouth Park in New Jersey, that could be in his cross-hairs. Stronach breeds and races hundreds of horses a year--he won the 1997 Belmont with Touch Gold and last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic with Awesome Again--and he’s in the game for the long haul.

His Canadian-based core business, the auto-parts manufacturer Magna International, showed a net income of almost $1 billion the last two years, and in May a spinoff company, worth $550 million, was put together for racing activities.

In Florida, there might be something going on between Stronach and John Brunetti, the maverick owner of Hialeah, whose battle with Gulfstream Park for the high-season winter dates started about 20 years ago. Stronach and Brunetti have met and are said to be simpatico.

One scenario is that Hialeah might wind up running its racing dates at Gulfstream.

“I hope we can do something together,” Stronach said without being specific.

Gulfstream Park and Hialeah, on the same page? What would surprise Florida more? A state-wide ban on orange juice?

Horse Racing Notes

Riding at the York course in England for the first time, Gary Stevens, the transplanted California jockey, won two races Friday and finished second in another. “This course has a sweeping turn that is very Americanized,” Stevens said. “It makes me think of home.” . . . Mossflower, making her first start since June 1998, suffered her first defeat in seven starts when she ran second to Delta Music at Belmont Park in New York. Delta Music was ridden by Jerry Bailey, who won five races at Belmont on Thursday. . . . Bailey, winner of the Sempra Energy Hollywood Gold Cup aboard Real Quiet on June 27, will return to Hollywood Park on July 18 to ride Desert Hero in the Swaps Stakes and Lazy Lode in the Sunset Handicap. Owned by Ahmed Salman’s Thoroughbred Corp., both horses were previously ridden by Corey Nakatani. . . . Forestry, who has won four in a row, will try to give trainer Bob Baffert his first win in New York when he runs Sunday in the Dwyer Stakes. Baffert is winless in nine New York races, including the last four Belmont Stakes.