Hollywood Park Will Look Beyond the Stars

After what happened at the Santa Anita meet -- the lowest on-track attendance in history, among other business reverses -- Hollywood Park would appear to have no place to go but up when it launches a 65-day meet today.

Barring scratches, 68 horses will run in eight races on Hollywood Park’s opening card, and although that does not bode especially well for the track, at least executives there can be temporarily buoyed by last year’s spring-summer meet, which was encouraging in several ways. Even in racing’s troubled times, a daily attendance average of just more than 9,000 is no call for chest-thumping, but at Hollywood Park, that figure represented the first time since 1994 that the track hadn’t slipped in crowd counts.

The 2002 on-track handle didn’t improve, but overall -- counting interstate and satellite betting and wagering on the telephone and via the Internet -- $688 million was bet on Hollywood Park’s races. That was the second-highest total in track history, and the best since the record of $729 million was set in 1998.

In terms of star power -- equine and otherwise -- Hollywood Park is in for a scramble. Medaglia d’Oro and Milwaukee Brew, two of the best older horses in training, are both stabled at Hollywood, but Milwaukee Brew was derailed by a virus after winning the Santa Anita Handicap for the second time, and Medaglia d’Oro, winner of the Strub and the Oaklawn Handicap, suffered a recent minor foot injury in a stall accident. These developments have compromised trainer Bobby Frankel’s mid-year plans, and neither horse is a guarantee to run in the track’s signature race, the $750,000 Hollywood Gold Cup on July 13.

Azeri, the filly who won Hollywood’s Milady Handicap last year, en route to the horse-of-the-year title, might partly fill the breach, but her trainer, Laura de Seroux, has recently been critical of the stakes money that’s being offered and will weigh out-of-town options.

“The Milady [a Grade I race on May 24] is only a $200,000 race,” De Seroux sniffed. “Hollywood Park needs to get with it when it comes to purses for females.”

One of Azeri’s objectives is to move past Spain -- who totaled $2.9 million -- and become the top female purse earner. Besides the Gold Cup, Hollywood Park is running another $750,000 race, the American Oaks on July 5, but that’s a grass stake restricted to 3-year-olds.

The transformation of Southern California’s traditionally well stocked jockey colony began at the Santa Anita meet that ended last Sunday and will continue in Inglewood. Last year at this time, hall-of-famers Laffit Pincay, Eddie Delahoussaye, Chris McCarron and Gary Stevens were fixtures at Hollywood Park, but only Stevens is currently active. McCarron and Delahoussaye have retired, and Pincay, who survived a near-tragic spill at Santa Anita on March 1, is considering retirement. He’s scheduled to see his doctor next week and a decision might be imminent. Another hall-of-famer, Julie Krone, was also injured at Santa Anita and will be sidelined until the Del Mar meet opens July 23.

Meantime, a raft of riders largely unfamiliar to Southern California racing fans will try to earn their spurs at Hollywood Park. For example, two Bazes riding in the same race will not be uncommon. One is Tyler Baze, voted the Eclipse Award for best apprentice in 2000, and the other is M.C. Baze, the 16-year-old son of a former jockey, who is just starting out.

On the training side, Frankel, who has won the Hollywood title two of the last three years, and Bob Baffert, fresh from his seventh consecutive Santa Anita title, will face a new challenger in Jerry Hollendorfer, the Northern California kingpin who has been among the national purse leaders in recent years. Hollendorfer, sixth in the country with a $2-million total, will stable about 40 head at Hollywood.

Among the missing conditioners is Wayne Lukas, who has been a fixture at Hollywood since leaving the quarter horse business to take up thoroughbreds in 1978. Lukas, who won only four races at Santa Anita and is a comparatively low No. 16 on the national money list, will focus on Eastern and Midwestern tracks.

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The 129th Kentucky Derby, to be run at Churchill Downs on May 3, lost a contender Tuesday but might have picked up a foreign challenger. Fund Of Funds, second in the Illinois Derby, suffered a small tear to a tendon in his left foreleg and won’t run in Louisville. But trainer Dermot Weld, who won the 1990 Belmont Stakes with Go And Go, is bringing Evolving Tactics from Ireland. The colt has run only three times, breaking his maiden at a mile on turf Monday in Cork.

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*--* Hollywood Park Spring-Summer Meet * Dates: 65 days, today through July 20. Wednesday through Sunday except racing on Monday, May 26 and no racing on Wednesday, May 28. * Post times: 1:20 p.m. daily, with these exceptions: 7:05 p.m. on all Fridays but May 2 and July 4 (1:20 p.m.) ; 12:30 p.m. on July 5. * Major races: Saturday’s Citibank California Gold Rush (6 races totaling $1.05 million); May 10, $400,000 Jim Murray Memorial Handicap and $200,000 Los Angeles Times Handicap; May 24, $200,000 Milady Handicap; May 26, $350,000 Gamely Handicap and $350,000 Shoemaker Mile; June 14, $350,000 Charlie Whittingham Memorial Handicap and $200,000 Hollywood Oaks; June 21, $250,000 Vanity Handicap; July 5, $750,000 American Oaks and $300,000 Triple Bend Handicap; July 13, $750,000 Hollywood Gold Cup and $400,000 Swaps. * Last year’s leaders: Owner, Allen Paulson Living Trust, $749,775 in purses; trainer, Bobby Frankel, 23 wins; jockey, Pat Valenzuela 74 wins *--*