Posts Tagged ‘florida racing’

By Ray Paulick

While the racing industry has been a clear loser in the demise of South Florida’s Hialeah Park, the city of Hialeah may have been dealt the greatest setback after the dormant track held its last race on May 22, 2001. It turns out, however, that city officials may be in part to blame for Hialeah’s current plight.

Hialeah is a proud city, and for much of its history the civic pride of the heavily Hispanic populace has centered on Hialeah Park. The fifth-largest city in Florida with a current population of 250,000, Hialeah has lost jobs and tax revenue due to the track’s closing. But there are intangibles that can’t be measured in dollars and cents.

“It’s been said and I believe it to be very true that Hialeah Park is the very soul of Hialeah,” said Alex Fuentes, who has led the Save Hialeah Park grass roots effort to bring Thoroughbred racing back to the place many refer to as the “grand dame” of the sport. “The track was the catalyst for the beginning of the city. The park was operational before the city was incorporated. It’s the coffee table the entire city was built around. Even the high school mascot is a Thoroughbred. Everything here had to do with the racetrack.”

It’s not widely known that the city actually held the deed to the track property and leased it to Brunetti throughout the years he operated Hialeah. A pass through lease-purchase agreement had the same terms as the mortgage, according to a source.

The 201-acre track had been owned by John Galbreath, the late sportsman who owned Darby Dan Farm and major league baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates. Galbreath paid roughly $21.5 million to buy the track from the estate of Eugene Mori in 1972, but wasn’t able to operate at a profit, reportedly losing several million dollars before trying to sell Hialeah’s pari-mutuel license and racing dates to Gulfstream Park in 1974.

That deal failed to go through, and Brunetti stepped in and arranged to buy the track in 1976 for a reported $13.3 million. It was termed a “complicated deal” by Audax Minor, who wrote a regular column called “The Race Track” for The New Yorker magazine. (For more on Audax Minor, whose real name is George F.T. Ryall, see this article in the Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred.)

Minor reported the city of Hialeah paid $9 million, with Brunetti paying the remaining $4.3 million to acquire the racetrack. Before the deal was done, Bill McCollum, Florida’s attorney general wrote an opinion giving the city the right to purchase the track. Some of the terms of the agreement between the city and Brunetti were disclosed in McCollum’s opinion (which said the seller would receive only, $12.3 million, not the $13.4 million reported in The New Yorker). He wrote: “The terms of the agreement provide, among other things, that during the life of the agreement, the track will be used as a Thoroughbred racing facility and for other municipal-public ‘recreational and educational purposes.’”

At the end of the 30 years, provided he lived up to the terms of the agreement and kept up with his monthly payments to the city, Brunetti would be able to purchase Hialeah Park for a nominal fee of $100. However, sources have told the Paulick Report that other conditions of the agreement required Brunetti to maintain a pari-mutuel license permit.

Hialeah Park stopped operating as a racetrack in 2001 and Brunetti lost his pari-mutuel license in 2003. Yet the city of Hialeah handed him the deed to the track in late 2004 or early 2005 at the end of the lease agreement.

The relationship between Hialeah city officials and Brunetti can be called “cozy,” at the very least. For many years, a man named Esteban Bovo, who was a member of the city council and eventually council president, worked for Brunetti as his “asset manager.” Bovo recused himself on any council votes related to the racetrack.

The longtime mayor of Hialeah, Raul Martinez (whose 1991 racketeering and fraud conviction was appealed and defeated in a second trial), was a member of a Hialeah Park “advisory board” and said to be extremely close to Brunetti. (Martinez is currently running for Congress). It’s believed that it was near the end of Martinez’s 24-year run as mayor in 2005 that the deed was transferred to Brunetti, despite the terms of the agreement apparently not being met.

The current Hialeah mayor, Julio Robaina, is subject to term limits, which restrict him to two four-year terms in office. He is up for reelection this year and thought to be very motivated to bring racing back to Hialeah Park as part of his legacy. Halsey Minor, the Internet entrepreneur whose interest in buying Hialeah Park has so far been rebuffed by Brunetti, has met with Mayor Robaina on at least one occasion.

One option Robaina may want to explore, considering Brunetti’s intransigence to sell, is eminent domain – a government entity taking over private property for public use. That may not be a popular concept in a town populated with exiled Cubans, many of whom had their personal property seized by the government of Fidel Castro, but there may not be many other options. Brunetti seems stuck on a price that far exceeds the appraised value of the property as a racetrack, and commercial development does not seem to be a near-term option for Hialeah Park.

It is in the city’s best fidicuary interests to have Hialeah Park operating as a racetrack again. It will create jobs and tax revenues and help the local economy. By forcing the sale of the track to the city, Hialeah could reclaim the land it once owned and lease the track under a long-term agreement to someone like Halsey Minor, who wants to restore the track to its former glory.

The city owned and leased the property before; why not do it again?

“An economist can measure what this has cost us,” Alex Fuentes said of the loss of Hialeah Park as an operating racetrack. “But the city has lost a lot of pride and sense of place and respect. There is no other city like Hialeah. The people here have lost a sense of their own identity.” 

By Ray Paulick

Well, it was fun while it lasted, this dream of someday returning to Hialeah Park to enjoy horse racing in its most beautiful setting. Since making my first trip there in 1988, when the South Florida track already was in severe decline, I’ve held out hope that someone, somehow could restore it to some semblance of its past elegance.

At first, I let John Brunetti convince me that everyone really was out to get him and that if he could only get a break from state legislators and regulators he could be the one to bring Hialeah back. But then, as the years went by and I saw Brunetti’s recalcitrance and heard about his disingenuous actions from horsemen and others involved in Florida racing, my expectations were that Hialeah Park would never be reopened after running its last race in 2001.

Then along came Halsey Minor, reigniting the flame of hope many of us hold for Hialeah. The Internet entrepreneur and Virginia Thoroughbred owner and breeder put together a team of experts to appraise the property, map out renovations for the grandstand and clubhouse, design new barns, and develop an operating plan. He engaged Brunetti is discussions that so many of us hoped would lead to a sale of the track to Minor and the rebirth of the “sport” of racing in South Florida.

Turns out Brunetti was only jerking his chain.

Brunetti is one of those guys who has a number in his head that isn’t based on appraised values, or highest and best use of the property. The price Brunetti wants today, the Paulick Report has learned, isn’t even in the ballpark of what he was trying to get previously from the state of Florida. It’s much higher.

There is no rationale for Brunetti’s demands, for he isn’t a rational man. He just has a price, and one that isn’t based on reality – especially the reality of an economy that has seen real estate values plummet, credit tighten and development slow to a crawl.

So the talks between Minor and Brunetti are dead, unless Brunetti has any second thoughts.

Given the nature of the economy, financial markets and zoning impediments that would keep Brunetti from bulldozing the track and putting up a business park or condos, Hialeah Park isn’t going anywhere soon. It will just sit empty as Brunetti gets older and more bitter about his plight. Minor, 43 years old and involved in many other business projects, can simply wait Brunetti out and see if his heirs have more interest in doing something with the track than Brunetti.

As Minor has been quoted as saying, in that scenario Brunetti would “forego any of the recognition of giving back what he took from racing."

For Hialeah Park, it’s back to hibernation, unless Brunetti changes his mind and decides that he wants to be a steward of this Thoroughbred racing gem.

SO HORSE OF THE WORLD CURLIN, GINGER PUNCH AND OTHER STAR THOROUGHBREDS racing on a program that included five Grade 1 stakes could only attract 8,563 fans to Belmont Park. No surprise there, especially considering the rainstorms that swept through the New York metropolitan area. But previous crowds to see Curlin compete at New York Racing Association tracks weren’t exactly overwhelming. For both the Woodward at Saratoga and Saturday’s Jockey Club Gold Cup, NYRA’s marketing team tried to stir up interest in a sporting public apathetic to any racing that doesn’t involve the Triple Crown.

The problem isn’t what NYRA’s marketing department has done over the last few months. It’s much bigger than that. The challenge for the “new” out-of-bankruptcy NYRA (which looks suspiciously like the old NYRA to me) is to redefine itself and somehow overcome a reputation defined by decades of arrogance and indifference to the public.

THANKS TO THE READER WHO TIPPED US TO THE LATE SCRATCH OF SAILORS SUNSET from Saturday’s Grade 1 Ancient Title sprint at Santa Anita. A check with the California Horse Racing Board’s equine medical director, Dr. Rick Arthur, confirmed that there was a scratch on that day’s program because a horse received a pre-race throat flush that involved something other than water, the only substance permitted on race day. Arthur said there appeared to be no performance-enhancing procedure attempted on the horse (i.e., a milkshake), but that a steward’s hearing would be conducted into the matter. If Sailors Sunset was indeed the horse in question, the hearing would involve trainer Marcelo Polanco.

California’s prohibition on race-day of throat-washing products such as Wind Aid that are commonly used in some other jurisdictions could create problems at this year’s Breeders’ Cup for trainers unfamiliar with CHRB regulations. For that reason, Arthur said, the Breeders’ Cup horseman’s handbook will explain its medication rules in detail and an associate steward will be assigned to outline California medication rules to every trainer with a horse in the Breeders ‘ Cup.

 

BEST PERFORMANCE OF A SPECTACULAR WEEKEND OF RACING? Was it Curlin’s victory over Wanderin Boy in the Jockey Club Gold Cup? Zenyatta’s dominating performance in the Lady’s Secret at Santa Anita? Eye-popping turf victories by Grand Couturier in the Joe Hirsch Invitational Turf Classic or Red Giant in the Clement L. Hirsch Memorial? How about the stretch-running victory by the 2-year-old Tapit filly Stardom Bound in the Oak Leaf Stakes?

All were outstanding, without question, but in my book the race that might be the most overlooked was the track-record blowout by Fatal Bullet in the Kentucky Cup Sprint at Turfway Park. This 3-year-old Red Bullet gelding is a synthetic track specialist who could be very dangerous on the Pro-Ride surface at Santa Anita in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint.

Who did you like in these Breeders’ Cup preps?

Copyright © 2008, The Paulick Report

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John Brunetti gave Halsey Minor an extensive tour of Hialeah Park, the racetrack Brunetti bought 30 years ago, and the two men then held extensive discussions about what it would take to have the South Florida track reopened after being shuttered since May 22, 2001.

 The meeting – the first face-to-face talks between the two men since Minor announced his interest in buying Hialeah Park and bringing back live racing – took place on Wednesday morning. Minor described it to the Paulick Report as “a surprisingly good meeting” and said we are now “in discussions.”

 “I didn’t know whether he would reject the idea out of hand, but I can honestly say that if we can get through the complex financial and emotional issues that John has a result of 30 years of ownership, that we can get Hialeah Park back running.”

 The two men drove around the facility, Minor said, with Brunetti telling stories about different places where things used to be and historic events took place. “The man genuinely loves the place,” Minor said of Brunetti. “We were all the way up in the stands, at the top level, and I literally could imagine horses crossing the finish line below us. I said to John, ‘Sometimes when I’ve looked at houses that I’m interested in I want to run because it feels so bad, and sometimes it feels like home. There is something about this place, something incredibly special.’ John told me, ‘Yes, sometimes it makes you want to cry.’ I said, ‘This place has to come back. It’s too special. There aren’t many places on earth like this. It has to be brought back.’”

 Brunetti and Minor returned to the office Brunetti maintains at Hialeah (he spends most of the year at his home in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.), Brunetti gave him an old promotional brochure, and the two men agreed to continue the dialogue.

 “I really tried to pin him down on what does he want his legacy to be,” Minor said. “From a development standpoint, he can’t develop the property, and he really doesn’t need the money, either. I said, ‘John, I know you don’t want your legacy to be the demise of this track. I’m here to help. There are not many people like me who are young, have done projects like this or have built companies, have the financial resources, who have the deep underlying passion for the Thoroughbred industry, and who are willing to take on a project like this. I think he genuinely appreciates what I’m hoping to do. He senses the commitment I have in doing this.”

 “He (Minor) was as forthright as possible, and he has the same dream I have to re-open Hialeah,” Brunetti was quoted at Bloodhorse.com as saying. “We talked about how he might temper his idealism, in view of the realities of the political and economic situations.”

 “I think there was a breakthrough and my feeling after the meeting is that he sincerely wants to see the track running again, but he’s struggling with how to make a deal that makes him feel good,” Minor told the Paulick Report. “He has a lot of complex emotions and feelings at work, but I think his most favored outcome is that we find a way to let me go ahead and rebuild the place. I don’t think he enjoys that drive into his office there, going through a place that’s been hit by a hurricane and sustaining the kinds of damage that time brings on.

 “He referred to the fact that I’ve done my homework,” Minor continued. “There are probably certain things I believe he thinks are going to be harder than I think they are – the pari-mutuel license for instance. There have been conversations with various people who have led me to believe that if the track is put back together it won’t be much of an issue. His response did not refer to me as unsophisticated.”

 “The rebirth of Hialeah could be some good news in a downpour of bad news.”

 Minor also met Wednesday with Hialeah city officials, including Mayor Julio Robaina, and local preservationists and other government officials. “The mayor of Hialeah was incredibly supportive,” Minor said, “telling me that the city of Hialeah will do whatever it can to help bring the track back. The community and political support has been absolutely terrific, and I think I have an owner in John Brunetti who wants to find a way to work with me, and that is the best news of all.”

 Brunetti and Minor will continue to talk by telephone, Minor said. “We are now in discussions and we’ll start to identify what the issues are and to look for solutions. In the meantime, I’m doing a lot of parallel work. There’s a lot to understand: the physical infrastructure, the landscaping, all the various and different legal ramifications to bring it back online, and then of course building a business plan and operating plan.

 “I like to think about what Hialeah Park was like so many years ago, and I’ve seen what it looked like in so many pictures in its heyday. This is an overstatement, but it’s like wandering around ancient Rome and wondering what it would have been like during that time. The pink flamingos are still there; it’s the only place in America where they actually breed. There’s still so much of that place left, it doesn’t take that much imagination, and it’s not hard to imagine the track running again.

 “I call myself a pessimistic optimist,” Minor said. “Things happen, but they usually take longer and are more painful. That’s probably what the case is here.”