Blackout Threat May End Hollywood Park’s Night Racing

The statewide electricity crunch has reached the door of Hollywood Park, which may have to switch most of its Friday-night cards to the daytime this season.

A decision won’t come until next week, but on Friday Hollywood Park officials indicated that except for opening night, April 20, the rest of the Friday programs, 11 in all, probably will be run in the afternoon.

Because of the threat of more rolling blackouts in Southern California, Hollywood Park would need backup power to ensure that racing isn’t interrupted, and this week the track learned that the expense of the emergency system is prohibitive.

“The cost to fire up the plant [with backup power] is much higher than anticipated,” said Rick Baedeker, president of the track. “It’s a tough call, but at the end of the day we think the prudent thing might be to conserve energy during the crisis.”

Dropping all but one of the Friday nights will not disturb most horsemen, who have long been at odds with Hollywood Park about the efficacy of the promotion, which began in earnest in the early 1990s. Night racing extends the workday for trainers and their help, who begin each day early in the morning. Many trainers pay their help overtime in order to have their horses ready to run at night.

Hollywood Park’s management has argued that Friday nights bring a younger crowd to the track and cultivate the fan of the future. Attendance on Friday nights runs considerably higher than what the track would draw in the afternoon, but there’s a dramatic dip in per-capita betting on the after-dark cards.

Hollywood Park had planned to fire a few perks the horsemen’s way this season. The track planned to pay trainers $150 for every horse that ran on a Friday night. Also, the track would have issued to the grooms two meal tickets, which could be redeemed at the backstretch kitchen, for every horse that ran. These extras would have cost the track an estimated $125,000, but on Friday a track spokesman said that the plan was on hold until a decision is reached on the future of the Friday nights.

The 66-day Hollywood Park meet runs through July 16.

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A matchup between Point Given and Monarchos would make for a sizzling Kentucky Derby. Trainer Elliott Walden, who will have to beat both of them if he gets a horse to the Derby, favors Point Given at this stage.

“If you put a gun to my head, I would say that Point Given is the horse I’m most concerned about,” Walden said. “You wonder if Monarchos has done too much too soon. A lot of times you see a horse run well in Florida and then by the time they get to Churchill Downs, they’re over the top.”

There’s a small curse that’s following around the winner of the Florida Derby, the race Monarchos won on March 10. The last three winners of the Florida Derby have bombed at Churchill Downs. Hal’s Hope was 16th in last year’s Kentucky Derby; Vicar was 18th in 1999 and Cape Town finished fifth in 1998. The last Florida Derby winner to capture the Kentucky Derby was Thunder Gulch in 1995.

Point Given and Monarchos are both expected to run one more time before the Kentucky Derby. Point Given is scheduled for the Santa Anita Derby on April 7 and Monarchos’ next race will be the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct on April 14.

Walden, who’s regularly stabled at Churchill Downs, just missed winning the Kentucky Derby in successive years. Menifee lost by a neck to Charismatic in 1999 and in 1998 Victory Gallop was also second, 1 1/2 lengths behind Real Quiet. At least Victory Gallop made Walden the spoiler when he won the Belmont Stakes and prevented Real Quiet from sweeping the Triple Crown.

Walden will saddle two horses--Meetyouathebrig and Camden Park--in today’s $600,000 Turfway Spiral Stakes, the Turfway Park race that occasionally produces a Triple Crown winner but has sent only one successful horse--Lil E. Tee in 1992--to the Kentucky Derby.

Meetyouathebrig started his career in California, with trainer David La Croix, but was transferred to Walden’s barn after he was sold last fall. No matter the trainer, the colt consistently runs well every other race, having won three of six starts. If that pattern continues, today ought to be Meetyouathebrig’s day, since he ran eighth last month in the Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park.

“I didn’t consider the Florida Derby for this horse because of the way he ran over the track in the Fountain of Youth,” Walden said. “There’s no question he’s got talent, but we still have to find out whether he’s got class.”

Walden’s other Spiral entrant, Camden Park, didn’t run as a 2-year-old and has won one of three starts while moving through conditions at the Fairgrounds and Gulfstream. The son of A.P. Indy will be ridden for the first time today by Alex Solis, the California-based jockey who rode Victory Gallop in the Kentucky Derby.

“It says something about the potential of this horse that Solis will fly all the way across the country to ride him,” Walden said.

Meetyouathebrig is 3-1, the second choice, on the morning line and Camden Park is 15-1. The Spiral favorite, Buckle Down Ben at 5-2, is one of trainer Wayne Lukas’ dwindling hopes as he scrambles to find a horse that might give him a fifth Kentucky Derby win. Two races before the Spiral, Lukas will saddle another Derby prospect, High Cascade, in the $100,000 Rushaway Stakes.

Notes

Changing plans, trainer Nick Zito will run A P Valentine in a six-horse optional-claiming race today at Hialeah. This would seem to preclude A P Valentine from running April 7 in the Flamingo, a race Zito had mentioned earlier. Three of those facing A P Valentine at 1 1/16 miles today can be claimed out of the race for $150,000. . . . Rick Pitino, the newly named basketball coach at Louisville and one of the owners of A P Valentine, has changed his stable name. Pitino’s horses will now run under the Ol Memorial Stable banner. Pitino’s old racing name, the Celtic Pride Stable, didn’t fit after he left earlier this season as coach of the Boston Celtics.