Breeders’ Cup Goes Off the Beaten Track

Near the front of Lone Star Park is a life-sized sculpture of Alysheba, with jockey Chris McCarron in the saddle.

Alysheba, winner of the Kentucky Derby in 1987 and horse of the year in 1988, never raced hereabouts, but was owned by Clarence and Dorothy Scharbauer, who were as Texas as a longhorn. The Scharbauers’ spread was right out of “Giant.” It was a $20 cab ride from one end to the other.

Alysheba was the kind of horse Lone Star hoped to eventually draw to its track when the place opened on what used to be wooded swampland in 1997. That first year, Skip Away got beat here, several months before he won the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and Answer Lively, a future Breeders’ Cup winner, and Real Quiet, a Kentucky Derby winner, later raced here. But by and large Lone Star’s racing rarely rates national attention.

That will change Saturday when the 21st Breeders’ Cup comes to Texas for the first time. About 100 horses, some of them from Europe and one from Japan, will line up for eight races worth $14 million.

Never has a track this young secured a Breeders’ Cup. Bastions such as Churchill Downs, Belmont Park, Hollywood Park, Santa Anita and Gulfstream Park have commanded most of the dates, but since 1996, when the Breeders’ Cup went to Woodbine in Canada, the thinking has been to spread the races around. Arlington Park outside Chicago got its first chance two years ago, Monmouth Park in New Jersey will have a Breeders’ Cup in a few years, and Del Mar is known to want the event.

“It’s quite an honor to have a Breeders’ Cup,” said Corey Johnsen, who has been president of Lone Star since its inception. “We went after this years ago. We stalked [the Breeders’ Cup]. Not only me, but a lot of native Texans who are prominent in the racing and breeding business.”

Twelve miles west of Dallas, 20 miles east of Fort Worth and not far from where the Texas Rangers play baseball, Lone Star Park has copied what Arlington Park did in 2002. All 51,034 tickets for Saturday have been sold, and unlike other days at a racetrack, walk-in fans won’t be allowed. Lone Star didn’t have a choice. The plant is small and its regular seating capacity is only 12,000. The rest of the seats are temporary, part of an $8.5-million improvement program that was funded in part by the city of Grand Prairie.

It was Grand Prairie that hiked the sales tax to raise $60 million in the beginning, when some of the original investors had trouble with financing. The father-son team of Trammell and Harlan Crow, whose bag had been the development of convention centers and hotels, wound up building the place for $96 million.

The Crows and their partners, who included Bob Kaminski, sold out to Frank Stronach and Magna Entertainment, who bought the long-term racing rights for $99 million in 2002. Grand Prairie still owns the track and the land and manages the nearby concert facility.

Lone Star was quick out of the gate, boosted by a large off-track betting facility that was up and running the year before live racing started. But since then, like the industry as a whole, Johnsen and his staff have been hard-pressed to keep pace.

In its first season, Lone Star’s daily attendance averaged 9,763; at its spring meet, the average was 8,710. With a relatively low per-capita (the average daily amount that a fan bets), Lone Star’s seasonal wagering has dropped 30%. Lone Star does better in the Post Time Pavilion, where the per-capita triples as players bet on races simulcast from other tracks.

One of Lone Star’s problems, in the largest of the continental states, is that there are only seven other locations statewide where you can bet horses.

Lone Star opened five years after it received a state license. That came after racing had been outlawed for more than 50 years. Historian Bill Mooney said that during Texas’ 3 1/2 -year fling with racing, Hall of Fame jockeys such as Johnny Longden, Eddie Arcaro and George Woolf regularly rode here. In 1936, the parimutuel handle in Texas was almost twice that of Kentucky’s.

Because of simulcasting, many of Saturday’s horseplayers may be familiar with the fields in the Breeders’ Cup, but most of the horses and trainers will be trying Lone Star for the first time. In fact, there are only 10 eligible horses who have run at Lone Star before. In the $4-million Classic, the richest race on the card, the longshot Dynever is the only probable with Lone Star experience. He won the Lone Star Derby in May 2003.

“It’s a track that comes with its own peculiarities,” said trainer John Ward Jr., who won the Kentucky Derby with Monarchos in 2001. “Horses are not going to come out of the clouds to win. I think you’re better off to go in there early to train.”

Few trainers have taken Ward’s advice. Two of the exceptions, Patrick Biancone and Dale Romans, sat in the temporary bleachers and watched their horses work out Saturday morning. Biancone has Magistretti in the Turf and Sense Of Style in the Juvenile Fillies; Romans has Roses In May for the Classic and Kitten’s Joy in the Turf.

Lone Star’s dirt track, over which five of the eight races will be run, is a one-mile oval. The turf course is seven furlongs of Bermuda grass, similar to what’s used at Santa Anita.

The Handicapping Times newsletter says that runners breaking from the inside, with good tactical speed, should hold an advantage in the two races for 2-year-olds. Inside posts may also help in the Mile on grass.

According to Rick Lee, the linemaker at Lone Star, a study of this year’s sprint races showed that horses within two lengths of the lead early won 70% of the time. Few races here are run at the Classic distance of 1 1/4 miles, but Lee said: “Closers have won nearly 30% of all two-turn dirt races over the past four meets, so do not shy away from route horses void of early speed.”

Biancone, who trained in his native France and Hong Kong before moving to the U.S., is comfortable with both of Lone Star’s running surfaces. “That’s the good news,” he said. “The bad news is that we won’t have excuses if our horses run bad.”

Romans also has no complaints about the surfaces, but he wonders about the Lone Star clockers. He watched Saturday as Kitten’s Joy reached the finish line of a five-furlong grass workout, and upstairs the announcer, Michael Wrona, told the small crowd that the official time was 1:06 3/5 . Earlier, Romans’ Roses In May, running on a track that was hit by overnight rain, went five furlongs on dirt in 1:01.

“Where did they get 1:06 3/5 ?” Romans said. “He was rolling. It looked like he was moving better than that to me.”

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Longshots Sis City and Enduring Will won’t run in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, clearing the way for California-based Culture Class and Quiet Honor to move into the field off the also-eligible list.... Corey Nakatani has mounts in all eight races, matching the record set three times by Jerry Bailey and twice by John Velazquez. Nakatani has five Breeders’ Cup wins.... If Azeri runs in the Distaff instead of the Classic, Pat Day will be aboard Perfect Drift. Otherwise, Kent Desormeaux will ride Perfect Drift.

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The Facts

The 21st running of the Breeders’ Cup World Thoroughbred Championships consists of eight Grade I races with purses and awards totaling $14 million guaranteed.

Saturday at Lone Star Park, Grand Prairie, Texas. TV -- Channel 4. Coverage begins at 10 a.m. PDT.