On-Track Business Falls Off

Hollywood Park sustained substantial on-track business declines at the 35-day fall meet that ended Sunday.

Average attendance was 6,458 a day, lowest since the Inglewood track added to its spring-summer season with abbreviated fall meets in 1981. This fall’s on-track handle averaged $1.4 million, a drop of close to 14% from a year ago. Attendance, which was down 24% after opening weekend, was off 10.5% for the meet. The handle was down 26% after the first weekend.

“The inclement weather opening weekend proved too much to overcome,” said Rick Baedeker, president of Hollywood Park. “The opening Friday night [marred by heavy rain] was a near total loss. After that, we rallied but fell short.”

Hollywood Park was able to boost the handle somewhat because of telephone betting, which was available at the fall meet for the first time. Phone/Internet betting added $13.1 million to the total, an average of $374,000 a day. Total handle from all sources averaged $9.6 million, a 2.5% drop from last year.

*

Doug O’Neill may have won the Hollywood Park training title by a five-race margin over Bobby Frankel, but he knows the competition will stiffen when Santa Anita opens its 66th season Thursday.

“We ran a lot of horses at Hollywood,” O’Neill said, “and a lot of the big boys -- guys like [Bob] Baffert and [Bill] Spawr -- didn’t fire as many shots as they’re capable of. They’ll be loaded for bear at Santa Anita. We’ll have our work cut out for us.”

The O’Neill barn cranked out 16 wins, starting 64 horses for an average of almost two a day. O’Neill’s horses also posted 16 seconds and 13 thirds for a 63% in-the-money showing. This was the first meet title at a major Southern California track for O’Neill, 34, who took out his license in 1994.

O’Neill has two starters on Thursday’s card, including Excessivepleasure, a 2-year-old gelding who’s moving from a maiden win at Hollywood in his first start to the $125,000 California Breeders’ Champion Stakes.

The Breeders’ Champion is one of three stakes on the card, which will be highlighted by the $200,000 Malibu, the opener in the three-race Strub series. Eleven horses are entered, including Sunday Break, Mayaovsky and U S S Tinosa, all returning from long layoffs.

*

Alex Solis, winning one race on closing day, tied Victor Espinoza for the meet riding title. They had 34 wins apiece. Solis has won or shared nine titles at Hollywood.... The windup stake, the $85,970 Dayjur Handicap, went to Echo Eddie, who gave Pat Valenzuela his meet-high fifth stakes win. Echo Eddie, who has won nine of 20 starts, was offered by David and Rita Milch at their dispersal sale at Keeneland last month, but they kept him after bidders fell short of the pre-sale minimum price.... Golden Gate Fields, which has been hit recently by more than 12 inches of rain, called off its races Sunday after the jockeys deemed the racing surface “unsafe and unfair.” ... With five racing days left in December at Santa Anita, Frankel is $282,930 short of Wayne Lukas’ purse record, $17.8 million, which was set in 1988. Frankel has entered three horses for opening day, one of them Inesperado in the $75,000 Sir Beaufort Stakes.