Racing Panel Shortens Sights

Discarding a plan to come up with a racing calendar for the next three years, the California Horse Racing Board’s dates committee said Wednesday that it would recommend a schedule only for 2006.

“With 40% of our tracks in jeopardy of being closed, it would be folly and foolish to look at anything but 2006,” committee Chairman Richard Shapiro said. Shapiro was referring to Bay Meadows in San Mateo and Hollywood Park. After the Sept. 24 closing on the sale of Hollywood Park, both tracks will be owned by Bay Meadows Land Co., whose long-term objectives appear to be commercial development.

Dates must be approved by the full racing board, which will probably happen at the next meeting, in Pomona on Sept. 22.

The recommended 2006 schedule:

* Santa Anita, Dec. 26 of this year to April 23.

* Hollywood Park, April 26 or 28 to July 17.

* Del Mar, July 19-Sept. 6.

* Fairplex Park, Sept. 8-25.

* Oak Tree at Santa Anita, Sept. 27-Oct. 29.

* Hollywood Park, Nov. 1-Dec. 18.

However, Hollywood Park officials would have preferred more racing during their spring-summer meet.

Shapiro was a frequent critic of landlord Churchill Downs Inc., whose sale of Hollywood Park to Bay Meadows for $260 million was announced in July.

At Wednesday’s meeting, he asked Jack Liebau of Bay Meadows whether the new ownership planned to improve the facility and better promote the sport.

He said the marketing budget for the upcoming meet shows that the company will spend four times what Churchill Downs spent last year at Hollywood Park.

“I’m a big believer in group sales to develop new fans, and we’re going to improve the grandstand with that in mind,” he said.

Shapiro also had some sobering statistics on Wednesday: From 1990 to 2004, on-track daily averages have shown a drop of almost 60% in betting and 44% in attendance. Results for this year are also poor.

“What I see,” Shapiro said, “is an airplane going downward, and it’s getting very close to the ground. We have too many racing days, too many meaningless days on the calendar.

“What we’ve been doing doesn’t work, and we need to develop a plan. I’m a supporter of alternate gaming [at the tracks], but that’s not something we can currently rely on.”