It’s pouring on horse racing

A cloud of uncertainty has been hanging over today’s marquee Sunshine Millions event essentially since the 71st Santa Anita winter/spring meet opened the day after Christmas.

And that cloud is among the dark ones hovering over the horse racing industry in general and Santa Anita in particular.

Rain forced cancellation of Friday’s slate of eight races, the fifth time this month a race day has been lost because of heavier than normal rain and an ongoing drainage problem with the facility’s new synthetic track, installed last summer at a cost of nearly $11 million.

It is the worst spate of cancellations since the storied art deco facility opened in 1934.

Although Santa Anita officials expressed optimism Friday about being able to race today -- a very important day because of the Sunshine Millions races -- more cancellations loom before a planned four-day renovation to eliminate the drainage problem can be carried out.

“The latest forecast calls for no more heavy rain until around 5 p.m. Saturday, and if that is the case, we will be racing,” Ron Charles, Santa Anita’s president, said Friday afternoon. “We’ll be working around the clock getting the track ready.”

The cancellations have come as Santa Anita prepares for a big year. In addition to the winter/spring lineup of major races, including the Sunshine Millions, the Santa Anita Derby and the Santa Anita Handicap, the venue is set to host the Breeders’ Cup in October and Oak Tree Racing Assn. officials hope to be awarded the 2009 showcase as well.

But the industry has bigger problems than the weather. Internet and satellite wagering have cut into track attendance, officials say. Some racetrack operators say their salvation lies in gaining permission to operate slot machines at their tracks, and they have mounted intense political battles in several states toward that end.

Of immediate interest is the Feb. 5 California primary, when voters will decide the fate of four ballot measures backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, other leading elected officials, major public employee unions and Indian gaming interests.

Props. 94 through 97 would authorize compacts granting four tribes the right to triple the number of slot machines at their casinos in Riverside and San Diego counties, with the state receiving billions of dollars more than it currently does from those tribes. The company that owns Hollywood Park and Bay Meadows has joined forces with Las Vegas casino companies, the hotel and casino workers’ union Unite Here, and two tribes not part of the proposed expansion in an attempt to defeat the measures. On the other hand, Santa Anita supports the compacts, Charles said.

But the few hundred die-hards who went to Santa Anita Friday afternoon, partially lured by free admission, were focused on racing, even if it was being simulcast from other tracks, not politics.

“It beats staying at home,” said Brickwood Yoshita of Rosemead.

The track was installed last summer after the California Horse Racing Board, concerned about record numbers of horses breaking down, mandated that the state’s five major tracks install synthetic surfaces, which it deems safer, by the end of 2007. Santa Anita hired Cushion Track Footing to install a synthetic one-mile track consisting of sand, fibers, recycled rubber, wax and other ingredients.

Paul Harper, founder of Cushion Track, oversaw the installation. Harper has acknowledged that the inclusion of a silt, or very fine sand, created the drainage problem. Santa Anita officials say Harper is no longer returning their calls or e-mails. They say he is in Australia, where he is installing tracks at three locations.

Meanwhile, Terrence Fancher, executive managing director of real estate funds that own Hollywood Park and Bay Meadows, is leading the campaign against the new compacts. He has threatened to tear down Hollywood Park and replace it with homes and shops unless the track is allowed to share in revenue generated by slot machines or video casino games.

Douglas Reed, director of the University of Arizona’s Race Track Industry Program, said: “If you’re going to regulate who gets the machines, you’re clearly going to end up with ‘haves’ and have-nots.’ ”

Though voters in some states have allowed racetracks to add slots and video casino games, others have soundly rejected the spread of gambling. During 2006, Ohio voters soundly defeated a measure that would have allowed slot machines at nine locations and Rhode Island defeated a constitutional amendment that would have allowed an Indian tribe to open a casino.

On Tuesday, for example, Miami-Dade County voters will decide whether owners of the Miami Jai-Alai fronton, Calder Race Course and Flagler Greyhound Park will be allowed to add slot machines that they say are necessary to remain competitive with racetracks in nearby Broward County.

Racing industry experts acknowledge that the installation of slot machines and video casino games at racetracks won’t lead to more action at track betting windows.

“Not a lot people who come to play slots are moving over to play the horses,” Reed said. “But if you’re making money on the [slots] side . . . you can use some of it to make your horse product better.”

At Santa Anita, officials have not indicated a desire to install slot machines, keeping the focus on racing. Friday afternoon, however, the track was eerily empty, even as the sun tried to break through. Those in attendance were trying to make the best of things.

At one table in the RoadRunner restaurant were Chuck and Shirley Anderson, a retired minister and teacher from Michigan who spend their winters in San Diego. They said they’ve come to the previous five Sunshine Millions, always arriving on the Thursday before the races.

“This is just one year we’re having to deal with this,” Chuck said. “We’re still making a nice weekend out of it.”

By himself at another table was George Koeckritz of Palm Beach, Fla., a horse owner who has an entry, Little Nick, in the Sunshine Millions Dash, scheduled as Santa Anita’s sixth race.

He realizes he may have to fly back home without getting to see his horse run, but said, “No one is to blame except the person who put in the track. Santa Anita can’t control the rain.”

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larry.stewart@latimes.com

greg.johnson@latimes.com