Short List of Reasons for Size of Fields

It’s easy to forget that there was a racing commissioner before Tim Smith. Some say that, even now, it’s easy to forget that Smith is the commissioner.

That aside, Brian McGrath, someone with no racing experience, preceded Smith as a commissioner, and early in 1994, before McGrath took the job, for an annual salary estimated at $750,000, he asked people to pinpoint racing’s ills.

“There are too many small fields,” someone told McGrath.

“What are small fields?” McGrath reportedly asked.

Long after McGrath found the door, there are still too many small fields, particularly in Southern California, and Frank Stronach, who breeds and races horses besides owning Santa Anita and six other thoroughbred tracks, at least knows the definition of the problem. It’s his analysis of the problem that is puzzling.

On Tuesday at Santa Anita, when the track drew the smallest opening-day crowd in 30 years, he was asked about small fields. His answer was that there are too many horses training at Santa Anita in the mornings.

In other words, too many horses in the a.m. leads to too few horses in the p.m.

Elaborating, he said that the congestion during training hours makes the track unsafe, leads to more breakdowns and reduces the pool of available runners.

“This track takes a pounding with so many horses out there during training,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what the maintenance department does. The track can’t be kept safe because of all the horses that are on it.”

There are other training facilities--Hollywood Park, Fairplex Park in Pomona and the Stronach-owned San Luis Rey Downs in Bonsall--available, but horsemen generally prefer to train their horses over the track they’re racing on. Even many of the Stronach horses are stabled at Santa Anita.

He doesn’t appear to be trying to build up business at San Luis Rey Downs, which he bought for $6.3 million.

“I could double my money down there if I developed the property,” he said.

The wealthy auto-parts manufacturer is currently trying to build a training facility for horses that run at the South Florida tracks. He also owns Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, Fla.

“Gulfstream has the same problem as Santa Anita,” he said. “There are too many horses training over the track. It’s the same thing at Golden Gate (another Stronach track).”

These were extraordinary comments, coming from the owner of tracks that are in the business of recruiting horses. After what Stronach said about Santa Anita’s training problems, don’t expect many Eastern trainers to ship their horses to California. Eastern horses haven’t been coming out in droves, anyway.

Stronach’s best 2-year-old, Macho Uno, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and expected winner of an Eclipse Award, won’t be preparing for the Kentucky Derby at Santa Anita this winter.

“I’m worried about the track conditions,” Stronach said. “Bobby Frankel is a careful trainer, and I’ve got other good trainers, but my horses still break down.”

Jack Liebau, hired this summer to run Santa Anita as well as Bay Meadows and Golden Gate Fields, the other Stronach properties in California, predicts that there will be fewer racing days in the state in 2001, which is a popular remedy for racing’s short-fields headaches. Instead of live cards, tracks could offer simulcasting from other tracks, but Liebau said that legislation would have to be passed for that to happen.

Cutting dates is not a solution that Joe Harper at Del Mar will readily embrace.

“We’ve thought about cutting back from a six-day to a five-day week before,” Del Mar’s president said. “But when you think about it, why should Del Mar do anything like that?

“We’ve been running 42 or 43 days forever, never increasing our season. We make money every day we’re open. Then you look at a place like Santa Anita. They’re running 83 days this year. They used to run far less and seemed to do all right. Their seasons have gone from 70-something days to much more than that.”

Asked what to do about small fields, Harper said:

“Well, it’s for sure that the horses aren’t going to come from someplace else. So maybe we ought to be breeding more horses.”

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Dixie Union’s third comeback was a short-lived success. Winner of Tuesday’s Malibu Stakes, the 3-year-old colt came out of the race because of a tendon injury and has been retired to stud, further thinning the ranks of the horses eligible for the Strub series.

Dixie Union, whose seven wins in 12 starts also included this year’s Haskell at Monmouth Park, earned $1.2 million for his owners, Gerald Ford and Herman Sarkowsky.

It has been a tough month for Ford and trainer Richard Mandella, who earlier were forced to retire their 5-year-old mare, Reciclada, after a sesamoid injury. Reciclada won nine of 21 starts and earned $364,502.

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Lethal Instrument won his fifth race and first stake Thursday by outfinishing Deputy Flag in the Ack Ack at Santa Anita.