Santa Anita Fires Executive

Less than four months after he was hired, and just a few days before Santa Anita’s 70th season opens on Sunday, Michael Gilligan has been fired by the track as its vice president for marketing and sales.

Multiple sources confirmed that Gilligan was fired, and Jack McDaniel, president of Santa Anita, told his staff Thursday that the marketing department would now report to him instead of Gilligan. In a telephone interview, McDaniel declined to characterize Gilligan’s departure as a firing, and said that Gilligan would be available on a consulting basis until the end of the meet on April 18.

Gilligan, who had no racing experience, did not respond to phone messages seeking comment. He reportedly had a brusque, heavy-handed style that alienated some employees. One of them, Marisa Vetula, who was communications manager, left shortly after Gilligan came on board.

Gilligan was the third marketing head Santa Anita has had since 2002. Such turnover might be unusual for many companies, but in the world of Frank Stronach’s Magna Entertainment, which owns Santa Anita and 10 other thoroughbred tracks, personnel shuffling is commonplace. McDaniel, with no racing background, was named to head Santa Anita in January. Chris McCarron, a Hall of Fame jockey who was named Santa Anita’s general manager in March 2003, left that post this year and is now listed as the track’s vice president for industry relations. Santa Anita’s new general manager is George Haines, who has worked at the track for 33 years, mostly in parimutuel operations.

One track source, who asked that his name not be used, said that McDaniel wanted to keep Gilligan but was overridden by Ron Charles, who recently joined Magna as executive director of its California tracks, which also include Golden Gate Fields near San Francisco. Neither McDaniel nor Charles would address that. Charles referred all questions about Gilligan to McDaniel.

“Michael still has his consulting firm, and wasn’t going to be able to devote a sufficient amount of time to what’s going on at Santa Anita,” McDaniel said.

McDaniel said that Gilligan had been hired only for the current meet, although a Santa Anita news release dated Sept. 7 didn’t indicate that.

“Michael is quite simply the most accomplished and innovative marketing executive working in the field of world-class theme parks and resorts,” McDaniel said in the release. “His experience will be critical in guiding Santa Anita’s evolution from a seasonal venue to a spectacular year-round entertainment destination.”

A native of Montreal, Gilligan was credited with leading the launch of the Universal Studios Theme Park and CityWalk in Japan. He also has been senior vice president for marketing at Universal Studios Florida. McDaniel, a consultant for Magna since 1998, also has an executive background with Universal Studios.

“We were already up and running for the meet,” McDaniel said, referring to Gilligan’s absence. “The planning has already been done. All that’s left is the maintenance of the plans that were already in place.”

There was said to be friction between the Oak Tree Racing Assn. and Santa Anita when Oak Tree brought in Craig Dado in a marketing capacity for its fall meet. Oak Tree leases the track for the meet and usually relies on some of the Santa Anita staff during that time. Dado is vice president of marketing at Del Mar and the former marketing head at Santa Anita.

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Victor Espinoza, the Santa Anita riding leader last season with 89 wins, will be eligible to ride only in designated stakes races during the first seven days of the meet. Espinoza exhausted his appeals of a seven-day suspension from last March, when his mount, Megahertz, was disqualified from first to last in the Santa Ana Handicap. Espinoza will ride in stakes the first two days of the meet, including the assignment on Quintons Gold Rush in Sunday’s $250,000 Malibu. Espinoza’s original Malibu mount, Love Of Money, is stranded in Texas because of bad weather and is not expected to run.

Among the new riders at the meet is Mark Guidry, who’s won 4,585 races during a career that began in 1973. Guidry, 45, was one of 14 jockeys who were banned for the balance of the meet at Churchill Downs last month. The group of riders had boycotted the track to protest what they said was insufficient accident-insurance coverage.