ENTRY SHORTAGE FORCES HOLLYWOOD TO SCRAP THURSDAY CARD
By Ray Paulick
Hollywood Park will not race on Thursday as scheduled after the racing office failed to get enough entries to fill the eight-race program–the second time during the current meeting the track has had to cancel a live program.
Only three of the scheduled eight races filled–two with eight horses and another with five entrants.
Wednesday’s eight-race program at Hollywood Park will go on as scheduled. A total of 53 horses entered for the eight races, an average of 6.6 per race before scratches. Entries will be taken on Wedneday for a scheduled Friday night card.
A similar shortage of entries forced Hollywood Park to cancel the May 26 live program.
Tags: Hollywood Park, Hollywood Park cancels, horse shortage, Paulick Report, racing cancellation, Ray Paulick
June 15th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Too few, running for too little. Too many days.
June 15th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Poor horses!
June 15th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
guys, cali racing is done., shut it down.., or be like monmouth., run 3 days a week.., ONLY way it will survive.., tvg better look for another on site track., this is part of a country wide epidemic., too many tracks, too many race dates., not enough horses.,
June 15th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
actually, we have enough horses. Not enough new owners. If the tax laws were changed, more favorably for the owners, the purses would grow and combined with a reduced racing schedule the game would thrive!
June 15th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
If we got a fair share of ADW money, our purses would rise dramatically encouraging owners to expand their stables.
California has the best climate and facilities in the country.
June 15th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
It’s funny, when things were going great at Hollywood Park, Martin Panza was taking credit for everything (Pick 6 guarantees, American Oaks, Turf Festival, etc.). Now that his racing program is headed south, the excuse meter is in full effect. If you’ve got horses on the grounds, shake up the stall allocations and get them running.
June 15th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
Why wouldn’t Hollywood and Golden Gate get together and run a “Twin Ten” card with five live races each, HP running at :00 and :30, GG @ :15 and :45 with a Pick 10 pool that would carry-over from week to week? Gives the local track a bit of a breather, but keeps the wagering on in-state tracks.
It seems like during times like this, integrated cards might be the answer.
June 15th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
Until the elite fossils who have “led” the California racing and breeding industriesin the last 25 years are replaced by progressive innovators we should expect more of the same excuse-riddled mismanagement that brought us here.
June 15th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
Why are they trying to run 5 days a week? Jackasses.
June 15th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
I suspect that the owners – with the Oak Tree disaster being the final straw – have voted with their feet.
If so, who could blame them?
June 15th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
This is surprising because yesterday I tallied the field sizes from around the country for the racing this past weekend. Hollywood Park for past three days Friday-Saturday-Sunday ran 28 races with a total of 235 horses.
That was an average field size of 8.39 which is respectable compared to the other tracks on my list. It looks like they saved all the good races for the weekend.
The problem clearly is the low-end mid-week cards and trying to fill them up. Not too long ago the bottom level at the southland tracks was $10,000. Now it is down to $8-7,000 claiming.
That used to be NorCal territory. Golden Gate Fields caters to horses but one step above Portland Meadows stock.
It won’t be long before Southland tracks start to accept entries for $5,000 claiming entries and open up the floodgates from the barns at Los Alamitos. We should be excited. Right ?
June 15th, 2010 at 8:44 pm
“actually, we have enough horses. Not enough new owners.” Each horse has an owner right?
So many TBs including mares and babies have been sent to slaughter from California since the economy began to crash that the number of available race horses, Calbreds in particular, will continue to fall for that reason alone.
June 15th, 2010 at 11:08 pm
We are all cutting back and producing fewer horses. There has to be some cutting back in racing dates. Has the time come for California not to have two year around racing circuits? We are killing ourselves with a lousy product . Maybe NorCal and Southern Cal need to consolidate their schedules.
June 16th, 2010 at 8:02 am
A quote from Martin Panza the racing secretary at Hollywood Park:
From that 2,800, “probably only 1,500 are actually active.
The other 1,300 have no works.” Panza said.
Only 53% of the horses at the Southland racetracks are working.
What exactly is the problem with the 47% percent of the horses there?
June 16th, 2010 at 8:21 am
“There has to be some cutting back in racing dates. Has the time come for California not to have two year around racing circuits?”
Well once Hollywood goes under the shovel, Santa Anita won’t be far behind I fear and you’ll get your wish.
*
“From that 2,800, “probably only 1,500 are actually active.
The other 1,300 have no works.” Panza said. ”
Papers in the racing office does not necessarily equal horses at the tracks in training.
June 16th, 2010 at 8:27 am
T.N. Trosin….
The rest of the quote:
The other 1,300 have no works.” Panza said.
“Trying to run five days a week, year-round, on 1,500 horses is not easy to do.”
Q: why are 1,300 horses simply hanging around in the barns ?
One thousand three hundred horses !
June 16th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
California racing is HIV positive and Hollywood Park has full blown AIDS.
June 16th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
As long as Panza insists on running restricted races i.e. Cal Breds etc etc. he will not have horses. Open up the restrictions and we will race. Run straight claimers at all levels without restrictions. He just does not get it. He continues to copy the condition books from the prior years. Just laziness.
June 17th, 2010 at 7:28 am
some realization here! thanks TOC and the other self interest groups! It takes awhile but it finally catches up with you! We have been watching it for 25 years.
June 20th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
For twenty years, I have been pointing out the need to cut back on the number of races a track runs per week. Monmouth Park is proving what good sense this is. When will Hollywood and others get the message???