Leaving Was Golden for Former Santa Anita Track CEO

One of the big winners in last year’s sale of Santa Anita was William C. Baker, who recently resigned as president and chief executive officer of the track.

Before he left, the Meditrust Corp., which owned Santa Anita for about a year, paid Baker more than $3.3 million. He received a severance payment of almost $1.6 million in 1997 and was paid severance of $1.7 million last year.

Not a bad going-away present from a company that lost $83 million in the buying and selling of Santa Anita. Meditrust, a real estate investment trust located in Needham, Mass., also spent more than $12 million refurbishing the track before it was sold to Frank Stronach and his auto-parts manufacturing company for $126 million.

One Meditrust official said he wasn’t familiar with Baker’s remuneration, and David F. Benson, president of the company, didn’t respond to phone messages. “Not surprising,” said an individual at Santa Anita. “They didn’t return our phone calls, either, when they owned the place.”

Baker seemed surprised that there would be any interest in what he was paid as Santa Anita changed hands. His Meditrust salary in 1997 was $300,000, plus a $350,000 bonus. The year before, he was paid $225,000 with a $250,000 bonus.

“I had a change-of-control clause in my Santa Anita contract,” Baker said. “That accounted for the first [severance] payment. Then I stayed on while Meditrust owned the track and had another change-of-control clause when it was sold [to Stronach].”

Baker said that Cliff Goodrich and Tom Robbins, other Santa Anita executives who were swept out the door when Stronach recently brought in Lonny Powell from Turf Paradise to form his own management team, also had change-of-control clauses in their contracts. Meditrust’s recent proxy statement to shareholders doesn’t mention the payments to Goodrich and Robbins.

Meditrust invested heavily in Santa Anita and the golf-course business, only to incur heavy debt and see its market price drop substantially. Meditrust shares are now about 65% lower than what they were worth when the company bought Santa Anita in 1997. Meditrust’s annual report says that the company had a net loss of $161 million in 1998.

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Fiji, last year’s female grass champion and the 8-5 morning-line favorite for today’s Osunitas Handicap, has been scratched because of cough, trainer Neil Drysdale said.

Fiji, who hasn’t run in 8 1/2 months, was bothered by a muscle pull earlier in the year. Drysdale said that she will probably run on Sept. 4 in the Ramona Handicap.

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Trainer Bobby Frankel, who will run Cyrillic and Happyanunoit in the Osunitas, has shipped Keeper Hill to Delaware Park for Sunday’s $500,000 Delaware Handicap.

Frankel is one of the early critics of the Del Mar dirt track, which has been rebuilt at a cost of $600,000. But other horsemen--trainer Jenine Sahadi and jockey David Flores, for instance--like the new surface.

“Early this week, it was fine,” trainer Bill Spawr said. “Then the day before the opener and opening day [Thursday], it changed for the worse. But they worked on it after opening day and [Friday morning] it seems to be all right again.”

Horse Racing Notes

Patrick Byrne, who trained 1997 horse-of-the-year Favorite Trick and then gave up him and another champion, Countess Diana, to take a private job with Frank Stronach, is suing Stronach for $384,000. Byrne, who won the 1998 Breeders’ Cup Classic with Awesome Again and then quit him early this year, claims that Stronach owes him $300,000 in a separation payment and $84,000 in training bills.

Alex Solis won three races Friday night, but the best he could do on Queenie Belle, the 3-10 favorite in the $150,000 California Thoroughbred Breeders Assn. Stakes, was second. With Queenie Belle off to a slow start and then stuck on the inside later in the race for 2-year-old fillies,, Fire Sale Queen held on for a half-length victory. Fire Sale Queen, ridden by Martin Pedroza, was bought by Ben Rochelle for $200,000 after her debut, a three-length win in a two-furlong race at Santa Anita on March 17. Fire Sale Queen paid $19.60 to win.