Advertising Plan Put on Hold by Board

The galloping billboards that might have been on display when the Santa Anita season opens on Dec. 26 have been put on hold by the California Horse Racing Board.

In a partnership with horse owners and track proprietors, jockeys had hoped to be able to sell advertising space on the equipment that they and their horses wear, but Bob Tourtelot, chairman of the racing board, wants to wait until the board’s next meeting, in January, before reconsidering a proposal that would have cleared the way. As it is, jockeys in California and all other U.S. racing jurisdictions are prohibited by state regulations or local policy from plugging products on their backs, pants and horses’ saddlecloths.

At Friday’s board meeting in Cypress, at least two of the five racing commissioners were prepared to approve a rough plan that the jockeys, owners and tracks had discussed, but it bothered Tourtelot when he heard that Jack Liebau, general manager of Frank Stronach’s three California tracks, hadn’t seen a draft of the informal agreement.

“I’m not against this,” Tourtelot said. “In fact, you can check the record and see that this was my idea. But why should we be amending the rule [that bans advertising] when there’s no real agreement among the parties concerned? To do that would put the cart before the horse.”

John Van de Kamp, president of the Thoroughbred Owners of California, said that his group met with representatives of the Jockeys’ Guild and state racetracks at Del Mar in late July and hammered out guidelines that would govern endorsements. The monetary splits would be divided according to which advertising space was sold. The jockeys would gain the most by selling space on their pants; the owners would receive the biggest cut from the riding colors, and the tracks would collect most of the saddlecloth money. Small amounts would be funneled to the jockeys’ health fund and the California Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Foundation.

No plan would be without problems, Van de Kamp conceded.

“This will be a one-year experiment,” he said. “Maybe after that we might find that it’s not workable. But it’s worth a try, and might tap into revenues that racing hasn’t explored before.”

A month ago, during Breeders’ Cup week in Louisville, Ky., horse owner Mike Pegram discussed endorsement possibilities. Pegram is not as enthusiastic about advertising on horseback as some others are.

“I’m not about to have a jockey shilling for Burger King while riding one of my horses,” said Pegram, who owns a string of McDonald’s franchises in the state of Washington. “There are a lot of people in racing that I’d like to see do better financially, but jockeys aren’t at the top of that list.”

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Bienamado, who runs uncoupled instead as part of a three-horse entry, is the 2-1 morning-line favorite for today’s Hollywood Turf Cup. Single Empire and Vergennes, both owned by Gary Tanaka, are 3-1 as an entry, and Lazy Lode, who has won the last two runnings of the stake, is 4-1.

One of Bienamado’s owners is Robert Sangster, who sold his interest in Single Empire to Tanaka last month. Tanaka and Sangster had been co-owners of the Irish-bred.

The Turf Cup field was reduced to eight with the scratch of Lord Flasheart, a French import scheduled to make his first start for owner Edmund Gann and trainer Bobby Frankel.

Lazy Lode can become the first horse to win the same Hollywood Park stake three consecutive years since Flawlessly’s streak in the Matriarch and Answer Do’s run in the Hollywood Turf Express, both in 1990-92. The only horse before them to win the same stake three years in a row was Native Diver in the Hollywood Gold Cup in 1965-67.

Notes

Sky Jack, winner of the California Cup Classic at Santa Anita, is the 118-pound high weight in Sunday’s $100,000 Native Diver Handicap. With Laffit Pincay riding, he’ll break from the outside post in a nine-horse field. . . . The 10-horse field is set for the $400,000 Champion of Champions for quarter horses at Los Alamitos on Dec. 17. Separatist, who’s won eight of 10 starts this year, is a 400-yard specialist who’ll be running at 440 yards for the first time. Others qualifiers are the defending world champion, Tailor Fit, Jakes Jockmo, A Ransom, A Delightful Dasher, Deelish, Runaway Will, Corona Kool, Chicks First Policy and Willie Wanta Dash.