Hollywood Park Racetrack

Hollywood Park Racetrack was an earlier incarnation of the Monmouth Park Racetrack in New Jersey

Hollywood Park, later sold and referred to as Betfair Hollywood Park, was a thoroughbred race course located in Inglewood, California, about 3 miles (5 km) from Los Angeles International Airport and adjacent to the Forum indoor arena.^[1][2] In 1994 Hollywood Park Casino, with a poker card room, was added to the racetrack complex.^[1] Horse racing and training were shut down in December 2013 though the casino operations continued while a new state of the art casino building opened in October 2016.^[1][2]

The former horse racetrack area will be the site of Los Angeles Entertainment Center, home of the Los Angeles Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers of the National Football League, when the stadium is completed in 2020. Until then, the Rams will temporarily play home games at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the Chargers will play at the StubHub Center for the next two seasons starting in 2017.

History

Founding and early years

The track was opened on June 10, 1938 by the Hollywood Turf Club^[3] the racetrack was designed by noted racetrack architect Arthur Froehlich. Its chairman was Jack L. Warner^[3] of the Warner Bros. film studio. Prominent shareholders included Jack Warner's brother and fellow Warner Bros. executive Harry, Hollywood studio executives Walt Disney, Samuel Goldwyn, Darryl Zanuck, actors Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Joan Blondell, George Jessel, Ronald Colman and Ralph Bellamy. In addition to being shareholders film directors Raoul Walsh and Mervyn LeRoy were also founding members of the track's Board of Directors with Jack and Harry Warner and Al Jolson.

War closure and rebuilding

Hollywood Park closed from 1942 to 1944 due to World War II, where it was used as a storage facility. In 1949, the grandstand and clubhouse were destroyed by a fire; the rebuilt facility reopened in 1950. In 1984, the racetrack was extended from one mile (1.6 km) around to 1 ¹⁄₈ miles (1.8 km) around prior to the first Breeders Cup race. In 1986, the turf course was similarly expanded from ⁹⁄₁₀ mile (1.4 km) around to 1 mile 145 feet (1.654 km) around. Harness Racing also took place at Hollywood Park.^[4]

By the late 1980s the racetrack Hollywood Park, though frequented by celebrities, was near the point of bankruptcy.^[5] As of 1989, a group of investors was working to buy Los Alamitos Racetrack in California for $68 million.^[6] Los Alamitos, owned by Hollywood Park, was still under its original ownership as of 1991, though a significant portion of the stock had been bought by external investors.^[7][8] RD Hubbard became CEO of Hollywood Park in April 1991, after having purchased a portion of the company's stock in late 1990.^[5] He was assisted in the ouster of the former chairman Marje Everett, who had run Hollywood Park since 1972, by company shareholder Tom Gamel and sports businessman Harry Ornest.^[7] In 1991 $20 million was spent improving the racetrack. That year the park earned its first profit in five years, and despite rioting in nearby Los Angeles in 1992, annual profits that year increased to $5.4 million.^[5] By 1993, the Los Angeles Times wrote that "shareholders at Hollywood Park... are enjoying substantial investment gains."^[9] A card club casino was added to the complex in 1994, as Hollywood Park underwent a $100 million expansion into Hollywood Park Casino, which opened in the summer of 1994. Also in 1994, Hollywood Park Inc. purchased the Arizona-based Turf Paradise Race Track for $34 million in stock.^[5]

In May 1995 after the departure of the Rams for St. Louis, the owners of the National Football League teams approved with a 27-1 vote with two abstentions, a resolution supporting a plan to build a $200 million, privately financed stadium on property owned by Hollywood Park for the Los Angeles Raiders. Then Raiders owner Al Davis balked and refused the deal over a stipulation that he would have to accept a second team at the stadium.^[10] After the deal fell through the Raiders returned to Oakland, California.

Hollywood Park Inc. suffered losses in 1995, though at the end of 1996, Hollywood Park bought Boomtown, Inc. for $188 million. Boomtown operated and owed casinos in several cities such as Las Vegas and New Orleans. Boomtown merged with the casino operator Pinnacle Entertainment in 1998. Hollywood Park was purchased by Churchill Downs Incorporated on September 10, 1999^[5] for $140 million. Churchill Downs acquired Hollywood Park-Casino in the process, which was in turn leased by Hollywood Park Inc. (later named Pinnacle Entertainment).^[5] The previous owners of the track renamed their company Pinnacle Entertainment to concentrate on its gambling interests.

Sale and recent developments

In July 2005, Churchill Downs Incorporated sold the track to the Bay Meadows Land Company for $260 million in cash. Under the terms of the deal, the company, which operates Bay Meadows in San Mateo, was to continue thoroughbred racing at Hollywood Park for at least three years. According to Bay Meadows officials, the continuation of Hollywood Park as a racing venue after that depended on California allowing more gambling, like slot machines, to the track.^[11]

Some of the Hollywood Park land was sold to real estate developers to build a new housing community called the Inglewood Renaissance. Development began in 2005.

New grass was planted on the turf course after Hollywood Park's spring-summer meet in 2005. Due to safety concerns, however, turf racing was not conducted for that year's autumn meet. As a result, several major stakes races that comprised Hollywood's Autumn Turf Festival were cancelled that year.

After the conclusion of Hollywood's spring-summer meet in 2006, it was announced that a second chute would be built inside the turf course to accommodate sprint races at six furlongs. This follows a similar move by Monmouth Park to build a turf chute for sprint races.

In 2010, Hollywood Park played host for the first time to Oak Tree.^[12]

Betfair/Hollywood Park Agreement

The Hollywood Park Racing Association and Betfair US, the Los Angeles-based subsidiary of Betfair that also owns TVG Network, completed a historic agreement March 13, 2012 intended to transform the customer experience for fans at the venue as well as online and on television. Under terms of the five-year deal, Hollywood Park was renamed “Betfair Hollywood Park’’ in what is the first naming rights agreement for a horse racing venue in the United States.^[3]

Closure

Former racetrack site, in 2015

On May 9, 2013 in a letter to employees, Hollywood Park president F. Jack Liebau announced that the track would be closing at the end of their fall racing season in 2013. In the letter, Liebau stated that the 260 acres on which the track sits "now simply has a higher and better use", and that "in the absence of a favorable change in racing's business model, the ultimate development of the Hollywood property was inevitable". It was expected that the track would be demolished and replaced by housing units, park land and an entertainment complex, while the casino would be renovated.

On December 22, 2013 at 6:11pm the final race^[13] was run with Woodsman Luck taking first place, Depreciable in second place and Danderek in third place, concluding 75 years of continuous racing in Southern California. The complex was demolished in 2014 to make way for a new residential complex.

NFL stadium

In 2014, Stan Kroenke, owner of the NFL's St. Louis Rams, purchased a 60-acre parcel of land adjacent to the Forum arena in Inglewood, California.^[14] "Kroenke's 60 acres aren't actually big enough for the [NFL] stadium and parking, but his announced partnership for the neighboring land, with Stockbridge Capital Group, would fold the stadium into a larger office/retail/residential project master planned by Hart Howerton.^[15] The stadium would be ready for the 2018 season, and has support from local politicians—easy enough, since all of the L.A. proposals are absent any public funding" ^[16]

On February 24, 2015, the Inglewood City Council approved a plan to build an 70,000-seat football stadium on the site in anticipation of the St. Louis Rams moving back to Los Angeles (which was the team's previous home from 1946 until 1994).^[17] And on May 31, 2015, with the Inglewood mayor on hand sporting a Rams cap, the grandstand was reduced to rubble in a flurry of timed explosions.

On January 12, 2016, the NFL voted to move the Rams back to Los Angeles 30-2, where a stadium will be built on the former Hollywood Park racetrack site.

Notable events at the track

• In 1951, Citation became the first million-dollar-winning horse by winning his final start, the Hollywood Gold Cup.
• On July 3, 1977, recent Triple Crown winner, Seattle Slew, finished fourth in the Swaps Stakes, a major upset.
• Niatross wins the American Pacing Classic in a world record 1.52 1/5.^[18]
• Hosted the inaugural Breeders' Cup in 1984 and also hosted the event in 1987 and 1997.
• 1991 introduced Friday night racing on 12 Fridays during the summer meet.
• The Quarantine Barn, with four, six-stall sections, was constructed adjacent to the main stable gate for the 1992 Autumn Meet. This facility permits international shippers to come directly to Hollywood Park upon arrival at Los Angeles International Airport.
• The 3,000-square-foot (280 m²) Noble Threewitt/Charlie Whittingham Horsemen’s Lounge opened in December, 1993.
• On December 10, 1999, Laffit Pincay, Jr. surpassed Bill Shoemaker's all-time record for race wins by a jockey.
• Cesario (JPN) becomes the first Japanese-bred, Japan-based racehorse to win an American stakes race in nearly 50 years, winning the July 2005 American Oaks.
• The race course is replicated in the 2013 video game Grand Theft Auto V.

Physical attributes

The track had a 1 ¹⁄₈-mile (1.8 km) dirt oval, plus a 1-mile 145 foot (1.654 km) turf oval. The track regularly seated 10,000 people. A new Cushion Track racing surface was installed in September, 2006 to replace the existing dirt, making Hollywood Park the first track in California to meet the California Horse Racing Board's guideline that all tracks in the state replace dirt surfaces with a safer artificial surface by the end of 2007.

TV personalities

• Matt Carothers (2006–2008)
• Kurt Hoover (1988–2013)
• Joanne Jones (1995–2002)
• Julie Krone (2000–2002)
• George Ortuzar (2001–2013)
• Rich Perloff (fill-in 2007–2013)
• Nancy Ury (fill-in 2002–2013)
• Mike Willman (1992–2005)

Racing

These races were the graded stakes races run at Hollywood Park. (All turf stakes listed below were put on hiatus during the 2005 Autumn Meet.)

Grade 1 :

Grade 2 :

Grade 3 :

Ungraded stakes :

See also

• Hollywood Park Casino, casino formerly part of the racetrack, still in operation in new facilities
• Bob Benoit (horse racing), general manager beginning in 1977
• Los Angeles Stadium at Hollywood Park, NFL stadium replacing Hollywood Park

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hollywood Park Racetrack.

• Churchill Downs