Hollywood Park Swings Open the Gates Under the Lights

With on-track business at a low ebb last year, Hollywood Park and its new parent company, Churchill Downs, are rolling back concession prices, revising the daily program, rejiggering the purse structure and making $6 million worth of plant improvements in an attempt to retrieve the fans that have gone away.

“Whether your [betting] luck is good or bad, we think we’re offering the best sports deal in Los Angeles,” said Rick Baedeker, a former front-office executive who returned as track president after Churchill Downs, ending the R.D. Hubbard regime, bought Hollywood Park late last year for $140 million.

The latest Santa Anita on-track figures, combined with what Hollywood Park did at its main meet last year, are dark precursors for Southern California racing, but Baedeker believes that the trend can be reversed. The 65-day season opens tonight with the first of 12 Friday-night cards, and the first weekend ends Sunday with California Gold Rush Day, a program patterned after Santa Anita’s California Cup and highlighted by six stakes for state-breds worth $1 million.

Last year, Hollywood Park’s average daily on-track attendance dipped under 10,000 for the first time and betting continued a decade-long downturn that resulted in the handle barely averaging $2 million a day.

“We’re going to try to turn things around,” Baedeker said. “Some of the things we’re doing are risky, but we’ve got the full support of Churchill Downs.”

Admission prices--$9 in the clubhouse and $6 in the grandstand include parking and a program--will not change for the ninth consecutive year, but the price of hot dogs has been cut from $2.50 to $1.50 and a 12-ounce beer, which cost $3 last year, is now $2. Another reduction is the $2 reserved seat in the clubhouse, which used to cost $4. Friday night hot dog, beer and soda prices remain at $1.

“Our goal is to break even with the lower pricing,” Baedeker said. “We look at it as an investment toward getting people back. We hope the money will come later.”

Serious horseplayers would trade extra hot dogs for more attractive races. Small fields, by now too familiar to Southland racegoers, drive bettors away, but Martin Panza, Hollywood Park’s racing secretary, has moved some of his available purse money around to beef up the cards.

“We’ve taken $400,000 from the stakes fund and put it into the purses for claiming races,” Panza said. “Our allowance purses will also be higher. Our allowance races have purses that are higher than any track in the U.S.”

At least Hollywood Park doesn’t usually have to contend with the wet weather that scuttled the recently concluded Santa Anita meet. Santa Anita was hit by more rain in February than it got all last season, and on-track attendance for the meet dropped an alarming 12.8%.

Panza is enthusiastic about Sunday’s California Gold Rush, which includes the $250,000 Snow Chief Stakes for 3-year-olds at 1 1/8 miles and five other stakes worth $750,000. There are four more Cal-bred stakes with purses under $100,000, including two maiden stakes worth $60,000 apiece.

There are no Best Pals, Bertrandos or Free Houses running in the Snow Chief, but there is at least one son of Bertrando, Hugh Hefner, who will run Sunday. Hugh Hefner, named after the Playboy impresario, appears to have rebounded from his horrible 13th-place finish in November’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Gulfstream Park. In his first race back, Hugh Hefner ran second April 2 in the LaPuente Stakes at Santa Anita.

Eastern-based jockeys Jerry Bailey, Jorge Chavez and Mike Smith, who among them have won six Eclipse Awards, will be here to ride in the Gold Rush. Julie Krone, who won 3,545 races, a record for a woman, will also be at Hollywood Park this season, but not to ride. Krone, who retired last year, will be a television analyst and participate in promotions during the meet.

The eight Grade I stakes on the schedule include the $1-million Sempra Energy Hollywood Gold Cup on July 9, the $500,000 Swaps on July 23 and the $350,000 Shoemaker Breeders’ Cup Mile on June 18. The Shoemaker, won last year by Silic, who went on to win the Breeders’ Cup Mile, was boosted to a Grade I by the national stakes committee.

“Now, the Breeders’ Cup Mile and the Shoemaker are the only Grade I grass races at a mile in the country,” Panza said. “The Gold Cup date is two weeks later than it used to be. That leaves it about three weeks after the Stephen Foster race at Churchill Downs, so now maybe some horses can run both places. Our later Gold Cup date also gives the horses that ran in the Dubai World Cup [in March] more time to recover, and it’s a month before the Whitney at Saratoga.”

Hollywood Park’s new track announcer, Chris Kotulak, succeeds Michael Wrona, who took a job with Lone Star Park near Dallas. Kotulak, 37, has called the races at Louisiana Downs since 1994.

Horse Racing Notes

At Churchill Downs, almost every morning with Fusaichi Pegasus is an adventure. The Wood Memorial winner, and expected favorite for the Kentucky Derby a week from Saturday, reared several times and finally threw his exercise rider, Nuno Santos, as he went out for a jog early Thursday. Fusaichi Pegasus fell over on his side, with trainer Neil Drysdale catching the colt before he could run off. Neither Fusaichi Pegasus nor Santos was injured.

On Tuesday, Fusaichi Pegasus bucked and jumped on the track and was reluctant to jog. At Aqueduct on April 15, the $4-million yearling delayed the start of the Wood when he was reluctant to walk to the starting gate, and afterward he leaped away from an outrider who was attempting to escort him back to the winner’s circle.

Officially, Fusaichi Pegasus has had no workouts since the Wood, but Drysdale said he breezed him before dawn at Churchill on April 20. No clockers caught his time.

Globalize’s trainer, Jerry Hollendorfer, has changed his mind about the Derby and expects to run. Globalize, winner of the Turfway Spiral Stakes, was second to Unshaded in the Lexington Stakes. Mike Smith will replace Fernando Torres in the saddle. Torres’ Derby mount is now Harlan Traveler. . . . Unshaded, whose owner, Jim Tafel, passed on nominating his horse for $600 in January and $6,000 in April, is not eligible for the Triple Crown races and would have to be supplemented for $150,000. Unshaded’s jockey, Shane Sellers, has taken the mount on Graeme Hall, the Arkansas Derby winner, for the Kentucky Derby. Graeme Hall is one of four horses trainer Todd Pletcher plans to run in the Derby. Pletcher’s other jockey assignments are Jorge Chavez on Trippi, Craig Perret on Impeachment and John Velazquez on More Than Ready.

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Hollywood Park Facts

* Meet: Today-July 24 (65 days).

* Post Times: 1:10 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays, May 5 and July 24; 12:10 p.m. July 9; 1 p.m. Saturdays, Sundays and holidays; 7 p.m. every Friday except May 5.