HOLDING THE REINS

In December 1998, industrialist Frank Stronach bought Santa Anita for $126 million. Since then, he has bought four other tracks--Gulfstream Park near Miami, Golden Gate Fields near San Francisco, Thistledown in Cleveland and Remington Park in Oklahoma City--for an estimated $206 million.

Stronach, 68, was born in Austria, moved to Canada in 1954 and lives in Switzerland. He also has homes in Canada, Florida, Colorado and Kentucky. His breeding farms are in Canada, Kentucky and Florida, and he bought San Luis Rey Downs, a training center near Bonsall, Calif., for $6.3 million. His flagship company, Magna International Inc., specializes in automobile-parts manufacturing, employs about 18,000 and has annual sales of more than $3 billion.

By himself or in partnership, Stronach has raced Glorious Song, Canada’s horse of the year in 1980; Touch Gold, winner of the Belmont Stakes in 1997, and Awesome Again, who won the Breeders’ Cup Classic in 1998. The last two years, Stronach has won the Eclipse Award as champion owner, his stable having earned 13.4 million in purses. Stronach’s top 3-year-old, Red Bullet, ran second to Fusaichi Pegasus in last Saturday’s Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. The colt will skip the Kentucky Derby on May 6 and is scheduled to run in the Preakness on May 20.

The Toronto Star reported recently that Stronach’s 1999 compensation from Magna International was $23.1 million. All but $200,000 of that was paid in consulting fees to another of Stronach’s companies.

Stronach was asked recently about horse racing and his involvement in it:

Question: The second season at Santa Anita under your ownership ends Monday. How has business been?

Answer: Not as good as we would have liked. The meet averages will not be outstanding, but they are all right. There was a tremendous amount of rain in February, and that hurt.

Q: You’ve made a number of improvements at Santa Anita, but your long-range plan is to make the track part of an entertainment complex that includes a hotel, a shopping mall and restaurants. How are those plans coming?

A: It will take several months for the plans to be approved. There is rezoning involved. But I’m hopeful that we can begin some of the work this year. If you pinned me down, I’d say that all of this could be completed in two years. I’d like to make 2002 the target date.

Q: What’s all this going to cost?

A: Somewhere between $200 million and $400 million.

Q: You’re sinking a lot of money into live racing at a time when live racing is struggling in many places. What is your strategy?

A: The potential customer has a lot of entertainment choices these days. As a business, you’ve got to be more innovative to survive, and without live racing, the sport would be dead. We should learn from Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, gambling isn’t the only thing they’re offering. They give you a cross-section of entertainment--something for all ages--and that enhances the gambling.

Q: Santa Anita runs two meets, your own from the day after Christmas to mid-April, and an abbreviated season under the auspices of the Oak Tree Racing Assn. in the fall. Is that enough?

A: I’d like to have more racing dates. We employ many people year-round, and it would make sense that we race more, as long as we have the staff there. I’m repeating myself, I’ve said this many times, but the free-enterprise system should prevail. If you’re doing the best job, if the people want to come to your track, then why shouldn’t it be open more? If racing were like any other business, the best tracks would be the ones that are open the most.

Q: But where would the extra dates come from? Churchill Downs, which bought Hollywood Park, is another company with multitrack holdings and it also has a big investment in California.

A: I don’t know where the days would come from, but I’d just like to have more. One of racing’s problems is that it’s so over-regulated. I know the racing commissions are there to protect the sport, but they take too much of the game out of the hands of the track operators. Once they license you, they should let you operate. Over-regulation is one of the biggest problems that racing has.

Q: Churchill Downs also owns Calder Race Course in Florida, which means you overlap with Churchill Downs in two major racing states. How do you and Churchill Downs get along?

A: Well, they’re part of the competition, but competition can be healthy. We have a lot in common. They’re building a simulcasting network, and so are we. There’s no reason why both of us can’t prosper.

Q: When you sell your tracks’ races to other tracks for simulcasting, do you do it in a package?

A: We’d like to. We’d like a track to take the races from Gulfstream and Santa Anita, for example, because with the time difference their cards don’t overlap. But I’m also conscious of the little guy, and I don’t want to pressure anybody. We’ve got to be careful that we don’t drive the little tracks out of business.

Q: Have you finished accumulating racetracks?

A: Not necessarily. There are one or two others I’m interested in. It’s a little early to say which ones they are, but there’s a chance they might be added.

Q: What plans do you have for Golden Gate Fields?

A: I think that track is a very important part of the overall picture in California: That’s a market that’s heavily populated. We’ve got some concepts on the drawing board that we’re still fooling around with. The track is in a beautiful location. I think that track, just like Santa Anita, could be enhanced by a big shopping area that could be part of the overall entertainment experience.

Q: You considered dropping out of the National Thoroughbred Racing Assn., racing’s marketing arm, then you decided to stay aboard. How’s the NTRA doing?

A: They’re doing OK. They’ve got a huge budget, and that’s a problem. They’re dealing with a game that’s changed drastically in the last few years. It used to be that each track had a singular owner. Now you have groups of tracks that are entities unto themselves.

Q: Lonnie Powell, one of your guys, was recently appointed to the NTRA board of directors. Will he be a vocal participant?

A: I don’t know if vocal is the right word, but he will certainly give us more involvement. The NTRA needs to be more democratic, more open. Doing things by secret vote is not the right way to run an organization.

Q: You’re approaching 70, yet you’ve created a new niche for yourself with racetrack ownership. What motivates you?

A: My love for racing. I also love the industry. It’s great to try to help a game that you like as much as I like this one. I think I’m in pretty good shape. I play tennis a lot, and I go skiing all the time with young kids. I ski the moguls, so I know what I’m doing out there.