Stronach’s Empire Is Drawing Criticism

On the first day of the meet, picturesque Del Mar drew more than 37,000 last month, a record crowd for an opener. Last Saturday, there was a crowd of 30,723, the most Del Mar has drawn for any day except an opener or the Pacific Classic, and this Sunday, with Kentucky Derby winner War Emblem expected to run, the turnout might approach the opening-day attendance.

This is the kind of track and those are the kind of invigorating crowds that Frank Stronach, one of the last of the live-racing boosters, envisions for his racing empire, a string of 14 plants that stretch from Florida to California. But here Sunday, the closest Stronach can come to basking in Del Mar’s success will be if his Milwaukee Brew wins the $1-million Classic.

Otherwise, the Austrian-born industrialist must make do with his two jewels--Santa Anita and Gulfstream Park--and their 12 dwarfs. Santa Anita, since it became Stronach’s first track purchase at the end of 1998, is a work slowly in progress, and last winter Gulfstream muddled through what has been described as the worst season in the South Florida track’s history.

“He’s got second-rate tracks,” said the New York Racing Assn.’s chairman, Barry Schwartz, who might possibly be Stronach’s No. 1 nemesis among his track counterparts. “He’s got Santa Anita and Gulfstream, but he practically ruined Gulfstream this year.”

Long on properties, short on prestige, Stronach recently reached into his seemingly bottomless coffers and, in a $117-million deal, bought controlling interests in Pimlico and Laurel Park in Maryland. Unfortunately, Laurel is more known for what it used to be--pre-Arlington Million and pre-Breeders’ Cup, a pioneer of international grass racing in the U.S.--and Pimlico, despite hosting the Preakness, the middle leg of the Triple Crown, is a rundown eyesore in a low-rent district of Baltimore.

Schwartz, whose Belmont Park stages the final Triple Crown race, said the day the deal was announced that Stronach and his Magna Entertainment overpaid for what he got in Maryland. Now he’s still saying it: “Maryland was a major circuit at one time, but it’s a bush-league track now. One of these days, Stronach is going to implode.”

Stronach and his first lieutenant, Jim McAlpine, could not be reached Wednesday, and Joe De Francis, who with his sister, Karin, became a minority partner in Maryland after the sale to Stronach, also was away from his office. The guess is that some or all of them are at Saratoga, like Del Mar not a bad place to be if glimmer glass summertime racing is your bag.

Shooting from the hip, which is frequently ill-advised, Stronach said for openers in Baltimore that he would like to raze Pimlico and rebuild the joint. Overnight, he may have tried to find some wiggle room for that plan, but local racegoers are salivating about a possible renovation. Just think, they say to themselves, the chance to visit their hometown track without worrying about the master fuse box blowing, the elevators stopping and loose glass panes falling.

Stronach, whose total racetrack investments now approach the $700-million mark, foresees the 2004 Preakness being moved to Laurel, with the work at the new Pimlico being finished in time for the Triple Crown race to be back in Baltimore by 2005. Already he is hearing quibbles from traditionalists who decry a non-Pimlico Preakness. They should be alerted that this is the least of the flaws in the scheme. After all, the Belmont Stakes, while Belmont Park was being redone, was run five times at Aqueduct in the 1960s. Don’t protest too much, Baltimore; better Laurel than Santa Anita for an interim Preakness.

For Pimlico, though, it may be too late. Many lapsed horseplayers have been lost forever, and cosmetics won’t be enough to coax them back.

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Medaglia d’Oro, drawing the No. 5 post in a nine-horse field, is the 2-5 morning-line favor in Saturday’s $1-million Travers at Saratoga. Others entered are Shah Jehan, Quest, Like A Hero, Repent, Gold Dollar, Saint Marden, Nothing Flat and Puzzlement.

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Trainer Bob Baffert said that he would decide just before entry time today whether War Emblem will run in the Pacific Classic. “We’ll have to see how he’s doing,” Baffert said. “If he wasn’t doing good, I wouldn’t run him, but as of [Wednesday], we’re considering running.” War Emblem, who would be the favorite, worked five furlongs in a fast :57 3/5 Tuesday, causing Baffert to wonder whether the work could have taken too much out of his colt.

Baffert’s horses finished 1-2 in the $150,000 Best Pal Stakes, Kafwain beating Chief Planner by one length. Baffert’s third horse, Icecoldbeeratreds, broke awkwardly and finished fifth as the 9-10 favorite.

Jockey Gary Stevens, whose riding career is on hold after surgery on his right knee, said that he has landed the role of jockey George Woolf in the movie based on Laura Hillenbrand’s best-selling book about Seabiscuit. Stevens and Woolf are in the Racing Hall of Fame. Another Hall of Famer playing a Hall of Famer in the film will be Chris McCarron, who has the role of Charley Kurtsinger. Tobey Maguire will play Red Pollard, Seabiscuit’s regular rider. “My part is more speaking than riding, quite a lot of speaking actually,” Stevens said. “I’ve never done anything like this before, but I auditioned and was hired.” Filming will begin in Kentucky and Ohio in October.