HOLLYWOOD PARK: THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES…AND THE TOTE BAG
How appropriate that just a few days before the Hollywood Gold Cup, the signature event of the Southern California racetrack of lakes and flowers, the Inglewood city council has driven the last nail into the track’s proverbial coffin. The once-proud Hollywood, a place where tens of thousands of people would come out for an ordinary day of racing, where champions like Citation and Swaps and Affirmed would make headlines, where people like Cary Grant and Elizabeth Taylor could be seen reading the Daily Racing Form and rubbing elbows with the fans…that track will soon be nothing but a memory as the Bay Meadows Land Co. prepares to bring in the wrecking ball and develop it into something called Hollywood Park Tomorrow.
I yearn for Hollywood Park yesterday.
Times change, though I often wish they didn’t. The death knell for Hollywood Park came when Churchill Downs Inc. sold the track, three years ago last Tuesday to the Bay Meadows Land Co. Then CDI president Tom Meeker said California “has forsaken racing and its needs.†If things were grim for the sport in California then, how do you think it looks now, with Bay Meadows also bought and closed for development by the same Bay Meadows Land Co., and Golden Gate Fields and Santa Anita Park in the middle of owner Magna Entertainment’s bankruptcy proceedings.
But Hollywood Park yesterday was the place that solidified my love of the sport. My first racetrack experiences were in Chicago in the mid-1970s, but it wasn’t until I moved to Southern California in the spring of 1979 that I got to see the best of what racing offered.
That was the year Affirmed carried 132 pounds to victory in the Gold Cup, covering the mile and a quarter in an incredible 1:58 2/5 while pushed the whole way by the Italian champion Sirlad. It was the year a hotshot California-bred named Flying Paster, winner of the Hollywood Derby, would carry the hopes of West Coast racing fans to the Kentucky Derby, where he would be crushed by Spectacular Bid, a colt who would come West a year later and continue to dominate that same rival.
Legends like Shoemaker, Pincay, McCarron, Hawley, and McHargue populated the jockeys room, Trainer Charlie Whittingham dominated the big races, and the stands were packed to the gills every weekend. Little did I know then that the 24,930 average daily attendance from the 77-day meeting of 1979 was down considerably from just a few years earlier, when Hollywood averaged over 30,000. Santa Anita Park was getting the upper hand under the marketing innovations of Alan Balch.
Not to be outdone, track owner Marje Everett pulled out all the stops in 1980 to reverse the “sagging†business figures. On Sunday, May 4, 1980, the day after Genuine Risk beat the California-bred Rumbo in the Kentucky Derby, Hollywood Park tried something new–a “giveaway†for every paid admission, of a canvas tote bag.Â
I was one of the 80,348 on hand that day, though I didn’t even know about the tote bag giveaway. I had come to see the ongoing rivalry between ex-claimer Wishing Well (who went on to produce Horse of the Year Sunday Silence) and Country Queen in the Gamely Handicap. I’ll never forget the traffic jam on Century Boulevard trying to get into Hollywood Park that day, or the lines for concessions and betting. I managed to snag one of the tote bags, and, somehow, 29 years later I still have it. Though it’s a bit the worse for wear, the bag is a reminder for me of the glory days of the sport.
That same year, Hollywood Park introduced Pick Six wagering (they even gave away a Pick Six beach towel in the image of a $100 bill….signed by “Secretary of the Treasury Vernon O. Underwood”) , and the racing was highlighted by incredible performances from 
Spectacular Bid in the Mervyn LeRoy and Californian Stakes (I kept my free “Bid and The Shoe†T-shirt for years until it mysteriously shrunk and no longer fit me). Average attendance soared to 31,150 in 1980.
Hollywood Park is where I stood in awe alongside my friend and former Daily Racing Form colleague Jay Hovdey, watching a 2-year-old daughter of Seattle Slew, named Landaluce, power her way to victory in the 1982 Lassie Stakes, a race since renamed in her honor. She drew off down the stretch of the six-furlong event to win by an implausible 21 lengths, covering the distance in 1:08 flat for an up-and-coming trainer named D. Wayne Lukas. It’s the track where the first Breeders’ Cup was held in 1984, when Everett pulled a few favors with her Hollywood pals and made it a star-studded event for people and horses. It’s been a huge part of racing history since its opening in 1938. Click here for a trip through Hollywood Park’s history in the introduction to the track’s media guide.
I could go on with the memories of this track, just as I could listen all day long to the deadly accurate and gravelly voiced race calls of the late Harry Henson. It’s not the same as it used to be—few places are—and since moving to Kentucky in 1988 I don’t get there as often as I’d like to.
I loved Hollywood Park, its horses, its people and its energy, but mostly for how it made me feel about racing.
Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report
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Tags: affirmed, alan balch, bay meadows land company, charlie whittingham, churchill downs, country queen, d. wayne lukas, Harry Henson, hollywood gold cup, Hollywood Park, hollywood park tomorrow, inglewood city council, jay hovdey, landaluce, marje everett, Paulick Report, pick six, racing innovations, Ray Paulick, seattle slew, sirlad, spectacular bid, sunday silence, tom meeker, tote bag giveaway, wishing well
July 9th, 2009 at 10:30 am
I see where
they will have a Casino there…course they won’t give any of the tracks Casino’s or Slots, but rip one down and they will.
Amazing thought process out there..course about like it is here
July 9th, 2009 at 10:37 am
The saddest part of this story is that this is probably just the beginning of many tracks which will be subjected to the same fate as Hollywood Park. If the face of racing doesn’t change, if it isn’t marketed in a way which generates subsequent income, then the face of racing will be changed for it.
July 9th, 2009 at 10:50 am
This dooms day has been coming for a long time. I’ve been hearing talk of it for 20 years. Back then it was because of the decline of the surrounding area into gangland, but now ironically the death of Hollywood Park is because of the area’s improvement.
Ray, you must have a huge collection of tote bags by now. I’ll bet you could start a museum of them. I have more than I can store and never use them. Looks like you used yours quite a bit - beach bag for Del Mar?
July 9th, 2009 at 10:50 am
The addition of hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail in a region saturated with millions of square feet of abandoned and vacant space makes no sense whatsoever, except to the developer who must build to collect their fees, and a city council desperate for tax revenue. I’ll wager that shortly after this project gets underway, there will be a demand by the developer for new tax considerations and concessions and a stop work order on the project “because of market conditions”. Their success at the former Bay Meadows site precedes them. May they choke on the space.
July 9th, 2009 at 11:08 am
There is a difference between idealists and simple dreamers who can’t fit their agenda into reality no matter how hard they try.
These people actually think that they are going to re-vitalize a run down, sad area and infuse economic growth into it when the whole nation is in the midst of one of the worst economic crises ever.
Someone sat up one night and thought up this scheme: We’ll built really nice homes and great retail outlets and our “town” will change, it will attract consumers and families who want to live here.
BE REAL! It’s Inglewood we’re talking about here. Nothing is going to change! The area is still going to be just as dangerous as it is now.
At the least, Hollywood Park was providing a reason for outsiders to come to the area and generate revenue. I’m not going to regurgitate the jobs that will be lost because this track is closing. Or the influx of business the track generates.
Have the council looked around themselves lately?
Absolutely, tear down the track and build homes and retail- it will help those gangs in the area proliferate: http://www.streetgangs.com/bloods/inglewood.html
Idealism? How about idiocy. Viewed from that stand point, it makes much more sense!
All I can say is wow. Replace a low crime activity with something that will generate, well, let’s just give it a few years and revisit this area.
July 9th, 2009 at 11:43 am
And due to a very poor slots bill for seven Ohio racetracks that was obviously written only to benefit track owners, the idea of saving the collapsing state breeding and racing scene is now a political football being fumbled by an increasingly unpopular governor. A year from now, four or five Ohio tracks may be shut down without a real plan for family farmers that bolsters breeding awards and purses for state-bred races.
California and Ohio are in major financial crisis and both have a racing industry that is reeling around the ring like a tomato can versus a legit championship contender. Racing is dying and/or has huge question marks in the states….and the arguments seem to concern who will be the “lucky” winner to turn out the lights.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Isn’t Landaluce’s grave at Hollywood? I know there are some other horses buried there too that I should know. I hope somehow the remains can be moved.
I also hope Inglewood is ready for its very own pile of rubble to sit and sit and sit….look how successful this developer has been at Bay Meadows.
Papi Chulli and Hollywood. It’s a sad day.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Times do change. At some point we have to ask ourselves have we really all been terrible marketers for the last 30-40 years or are the problems deeper and do they have more to do with changes in society and a product that is hard to present much differently than we present it now. The growth of casino gaming across the country in the last 15 years has positively killed our market share of US gambling spending. The economics of full card simulcasting are broken. Consumers indicate once or twice a year is their appetite for racing. ADW has not fulfilled its promise of creating new fans.
It is going to take more than marketing to address this and even the best marketing can’t save a product that people do not want to buy.
It might make us feel better to blame all the idiots who have been running the game into the ground but they seem pretty smart when they’re working on other businesses.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Clean it up, cut it to a manageable, attractive size, inject integrity, safety, anti-doping measures instead of drugs, aim only for quality, honorable racing, make horses and their welfare the true priority #1, then market it though it will market itself.
July 9th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
I totally agree with Joe, who on July 9, spoke about size, integrity, which we have lost, and marketing. We have to get the drugs out of racing, and we have to make going to the horse races a family affair. Without getting the younger generation involved, our fan base will continue to dwindle. Something we also need to consider is more evening racing. In this economy particularly, so many couples are both working, mostly during the day. Who can take the day off anymore to go to the races? We need to make the tracks more intimate like they used to be, and a place to take your date, or the family, for an evening of FUN.
July 9th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Thanks Marianne. I wonder if the TOC, HBPA and other horsemen groups will see the light before it’s too late.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
I started going to Hollywood Park at a very young age because my grandparents lived just up the road at a trailer park near Florence & Centinela back in the fifties, plus I had lots of other relatives in the area we would go to visit. Back then it seemed an OK area to me, but what did I know, I was a kid. As much of a fan I am of horse racing I seldom go to Hollywood Park, mainly because of the area it is in. I’ve often told friends that I feel like I’m on another planet when I go to Hollywood Park as opposed to the home away from home feeling I get at Santa Anita. I really don’t know what those developers are thinking that a high end retail/business/residence project would succeed in this area, because one thing is for sure these days walk in pairs to the parking lot and lock your doors fast. Hopefully they will take care at preserving and moving some of the precious racing memories such as the Swaps statue and bodies of thoroughbreds buried there including the great Native Diver, before the wrecking ball swings and the bulldozers roll in.
July 9th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Priscilla…
Breeders’ Cup used to give away a free canvas briefcase/computer bag to the media every year, and I got so many of those I used the biggest one to store several of the smaller ones. I finally culled the collection when a closet was nearly filled with the things.
But the Hollywood Park tote bag is a treasure from 1980, as is my Hollywood Park Pick Six Beach Towel (made in the image of a $100 bill and signed by “Secretary of the Treasure” Vernon O. Underwood). … .I’m just sorry I didn’t keep that “Bid and The Shoe T-shirt (my son would have loved it even after it “undergrew” me)…the rest of the 1980 giveaways I remember as junk: crumby white tube sox, useless binoculars….it wasn’t until jockey bobbleheads that I got excited about Hollywood Park giveaways again!
July 9th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Nostalgia is merited for those of us who were there when the business was healthy.
But for others such as myself, who visited the track for the first time after the glory years were long gone, HP’s demise seems entirely logical.
My wife and I flew to CA in 1998, beneficiaries of a client who so valued her opinion that he sprung for round-trip tickets so she could spend one day getting him oriented with his new computer system.
What to do with my free time? There was no debate. Although Santa Anita was dark, HP was open. Off I went.
I still remember the pain of the one-way $50 cab fare (If we had driven the same distance in a northerly direction, I could have toured the state capital).
What a dump.
Half the walls of the interior plant were painted urine yellow. The smell of economic death was inescapable.
There were no customers. Well, maybe a few (and visions of Lompac danced in my head), but when the echo of one’s own footsteps can be heard in the silent corridors of what was supposed to be a vibrant racetrack, it is eerie.
I missed the tote bag giveaway. I think they were celebrating Hialeah Preview Day.
Cementing the inevitable alienation of fan and track was the exit interview.
Somehow, I ended up sharing a cab with a hardboiled horse owner, a real big shot. What an attitude!
After he got out (Phew! - fortunately, he was going to the airport, just down the street), I looked at the program. What could possibly have justified this massive, flatulent ego?
His horse had won the first race.
It was a $10,000 claimer.
Goodbye HP.
Hello, Inevitable Rubble (& Future Worthless Neighborhood).
July 9th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
How many of you attended the city meetings and spoke up against the development plans? How many of you sent emails, letters, faxes, or letters to the city of Inglewood?
I can tell you how many, because I was there. Not many.
My day today was a day of utter sadness. I guarantee you - the owner of HP will act quickly.
I have done everything that I can do for the last year and a half to talk to people at the track, canvassed the Inglewood neighborhoods, created a web site giving up-to-date information, put cards on cars in the SA parking lots, gone to the backside at HP to talk to the workers, attended and spoke at the meetings.
The California horse racing industry have been totally silent. Absolutely no support except by several trainers who have worked at HP for many years. No owners, no CHRB, no TOC, no union leaders except for Doug of the pari-mutual union and a gal from the Casino.
My biggest concern are the 60,000+ people of CA whose jobs are in serious jeopardy. They have no one to go to, no one to support them. And our thoroughbreds, who give us everything they can, they should be our Number One concern. Without them, we have nothing.
So, don’t you dare whine in your comments. Don’t you dare sit on the side lines and give your comments. If you truly cared, you would have done something to support the industry.
July 10th, 2009 at 12:48 am
The track’s coming down, but not the casino that hardly anyone is ever at. Racinos will become casinos when the tracks don’t pull their enough weight. Be careful what you wish for.
July 10th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
You get what you put out. Racing is suffering as a whole because of its own doing. When you allow trainers to drug horses and repeatedly get away with it, what do you think is going to happen? Clean the game up and maybe it will survive. It amazes me how people are surprised by the way racing is falling apart. It’s very simple, do what is right, and good things will happen. Do the wrong thing, and you are sure to fail. But the people who run racing are too smart to realize this.
And California deserves these problems more than anyone. Most of the top trainers they have are repeat drug offenders, but no one does anything about it because these guys have horses, to help fill fields. Greed wins out, and everyone puts the horse on the back burner.
July 10th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
it’s a dirty industry as a whole. Most of the people, the day to day people, are great people, who do it honestly. But there are MANY dirty little secrets this game has, and it is finally catching up to them. Too bad for all the hard working people who will suffer because of the way things are going.
July 10th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
The last day of racing will be very sad day for true sports fans in los angeles…My dad and uncle first took me when i was 3 years old back in 1980..I still remember the CROWDS of people laughing and yelling it was unreal..I brought my daughter here at 11/2 and she loved it. She runs around yelling ”come on 9” to this day, months after her last visit.. Its going to be a sad day when the last horses races past the finish line for the last time…..i will be their
July 10th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
TVG KILLED HORSE RACING
July 10th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Who is going to want to live, shop, or gamble, without the horses, in INGLEWOOD? I mean really, developers, think about it! Also, I
don’t know where all the employees are going to find new jobs, and the horses. Oh yeah, does anyone care about the horses? I
don’ t understand why the TOC, the CHRB, the CTBA, and all the associated organizations can’t work together. It seems everyone
has a different agenda, and it until becomes one and the same, nothing can change
July 11th, 2009 at 12:09 am
You can thank Churchill Downs for selling to the developer. They knew.
July 12th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Like Ray Paulick, I also moved to Sou California in 1977 and attended several races, listening to Harry Henson. Although I lived close to Santa Anita (Alhambra), I made that mad dash down Pasadena FRY to Century Blvd and would park next to the fence on the far turn.
My friends would pool their money to bet the Pick 6. There is a small garden area at the head of the stretch where there was shade and there we would do our best to handicap the 4-9 races to hit the big one.
Hollywood Park did something I have never seen before, nor since. They gave away Thanksgiving meals to all paying customers on Thanksgiving Day. Since I worked in Santa Monica, I would drive down after work and watch the 7,8,and 9th races.
Hollypark was the innovator in give-a-ways. I have watches, caps, towells,and glasses to prove it. I have a record album that contains great races called by Mr. Henson.
I will miss Hollypark. Thanks for the memories.
September 22nd, 2009 at 3:28 am
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