Hollywood Park

Los Alamitos officials have proposed 1992 racing dates that would shorten the current quarter horse meeting but provide quarter horse racing at Hollywood Park for the first time since 1987. The proposal was presented Monday to a California Horse Racing Board Committee. It asks for 32 weeks of quarter horse racing, 43 weeks of harness racing and three weeks of thoroughbred and quarter horse fair racing. Under the plan, quarter horse racing would end at Los Alamitos on Jan. 18 instead of Feb. 8.

Santa Anita came away the big winner Thursday when the California Horse Racing Board tentatively approved racing dates for 2014 and 2015 in response to the pending closure of Betfair Hollywood Park on Dec. 22. Santa Anita will expand its usual fall meeting by more than two months, starting Dec. 26 and lasting through July 6, 2014. The Arcadia track will be in session for all three of the lucrative Triple Crown races. Santa Anita also gets the days for a possible 2014 Breeders' Cup during an autumn meeting that will run from Sept.

It is difficult to be at the Preakness this year without feeling a tinge of jealousy. That is especially true if you are just a few days removed from a visit to the current dungeon of California racing, a.k.a. Hollywood Park. All signs here point to a racing boom. All signs at Hollywood Park point to the exits. New brick and mortar are coming and the place will feature tracts, not a track. Not that long ago, Maryland was in a similar place when it came to its thoroughbred industry.

It is difficult to be at the Preakness this year without feeling a tinge of jealousy. That is especially true if you are just a few days removed from a visit to the current dungeon of California racing, a.k.a. Hollywood Park. All signs here point to a racing boom. All signs at Hollywood Park point to the exits. New brick and mortar are coming and the place will feature tracts, not a track. Not that long ago, Maryland was in a similar place when it came to its thoroughbred industry.

They waved "Girl Power" posters. They sought autographs from the jockey, trainer and owner. And they cheered loudly as the queen of thoroughbred racing in California, the unbeaten Zenyatta, made an encore appearance Sunday at Hollywood Park in appreciation of her adoring fans. The 5-year-old mare who's 14 for 14 in her racing career and headed for retirement in Kentucky was paraded up and down the stretch after the seventh race before 9,814 people, the largest crowd of the 27-day autumn meeting.

The $750,000 CashCall Futurity, $250,000 Hollywood Turf Cup, $250,000 Matriarch, $250,000 Hollywood Derby and $250,000 Hollywood Starlet highlight a 31-day meet. Turf races and two championship races for 2-year-olds highlight the 31-day Hollywood Park autumn meet, which begins with a Thursday card at 7:05 p.m. There will be five Grade I events, three on the turf, for a meet that concludes Dec. 19. There are also early post times Friday and Saturday, 12:15 p.m. and 11:15 a.m., for the Breeders' Cup being held in Kentucky.

Hollywood Park will switch from a five-day to a four-day racing week effective immediately, with no racing Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, under a plan approved Friday by the California Horse Racing Board. Live racing will be conducted Thursdays through Sundays with the exception of a special Memorial Day program on Monday, May 25. The track was put in the embarrassing position last month of having to cancel a Thursday race card because there were not enough horses for eight races.

According to backstretch reports, trainer Bob Baffert's barn at Hollywood Park was searched Thursday by investigators for the California Horse Racing Board. Neither a board spokesman nor Baffert would confirm the search. Baffert is at Pimlico in Baltimore, preparing Captain Steve to run in Saturday's Preakness. "I have no comment about that," Baffert said when asked about the search.

The Hollywood Park spring-summer meeting began Thursday with a dramatic finish in the featured $72,350 Harry Henson Stakes for 3-year-olds going six furlongs. American Act, under jockey Rafael Bejarano, rallied from last in a field of six and, after badly drifting to the outside entering the stretch, came on to win by a nose over Senor Rain in a race switched to the cushion track from the turf because of rain. "He never showed signs of doing anything like that before," trainer Jack Carava said.

It's the biggest weekend of the 27-day Hollywood Park meeting, with three Grade I stakes as part of the track's three-day turf festival, culminating on Sunday when unbeaten Zenyatta will make an appearance after the seventh race, allowing fans to salute her before she heads off for retirement in Kentucky and breeding duties. The $300,000 Citation Handicap starts off the weekend festivities today at 1 1/16 miles on the turf, followed on Saturday by the $300,000 Matriarch Stakes at one mile on the turf.

With its announcement Thursday, Hollywood Park did little to refute the theory that horse racing is a sport in need of hospice. They raced at the Inglewood track Friday, but it wasn't business as usual. Nor will it be the rest of this meeting and the track's final one, which ends Dec. 22. For people in the business, and fans of the sport, the next six months of racing at the place universally known as Hollypark will be an emotional saddle sore. The bulldozers are at the gate.

Everyone knew the day was coming and now it's a reality. After 75 years of horse racing, Betfair Hollywood Park will end its operations following the final race of its autumn meeting Dec. 22. The words "sad day" were repeated often Thursday afternoon at the Inglewood track, where owners, trainers, jockeys and fans reacted somberly to the news. The official announcement came in a letter from track President Jack Liebau sent to the California Horse Racing Board on Wednesday informing them that Hollywood Park Land Co. would not be requesting any 2014 racing dates.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - With nary a thought to Hamlet, trainer Bob Baffert is currently suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. In his current situation, and in a world where oft-misinformed social media stirs the rumor pot to a boil, there is little he can do. Shakespeare might advise not to "take arms against a sea of troubles. " Baffert's friend Wayne Lukas advises the same, but in straighter language. "Bob will take the high road," Lukas said Thursday. The issue is a prickly one. It has created more Internet buzz than an acre of beehives.

The jockey colony at Hollywood Park might want to break out a bottle of champagne to celebrate the absence of Rafael Bejarano next week when he leaves town to ride Midnight Lucky in the Kentucky Oaks and Overanalyze in the Kentucky Derby. That means somebody else will get a chance to ride a winner. The red-hot Bejarano won four races in four mounts Friday. Then, on California Gold Rush Day on Saturday, he won three of the four richest stakes, including the $300,000 Snow Chief Stakes aboard Surfcup for trainer Bob Baffert.

Betfair Hollywood Park begins what could be its final 49-day spring-summer meeting Thursday. The California Horse Racing Board is scheduled to move forward on 2014 racing dates at its next meeting on May 23 in Sacramento, even though Hollywood Park has not publicly stated whether the track will shut down at the end of this year. Jack Liebau, president of Hollywood Park, said last week that people seem to be assuming the Inglewood track will not have racing next year. "They may be right; they may be wrong," he said.

John Shirreffs should not depart the Southern California thoroughbred racing scene without a salute. So cup your right hand to your forehead and read on. There will be no brass bands playing when Shirreffs leaves. That's partly because it will be early Monday morning, when racing bustles and everybody else sleeps. Moving vans will pull up to Barn 55 South and load boxes of racing equipment accumulated over three decades at Hollywood Park. That done, the quiet man in the baseball cap will head to LAX and fly east.

Some days are better than others. And then there was Bob Baffert's day at Hollywood Park. The Hall of Fame trainer, known for his coiffed white hair and clever banter, not only won Saturday's $750,000 CashCall Futurity with a horse that has to be considered a serious Kentucky Derby contender, but he won three other races. And all with 2-year-olds. It was the first time Baffert has ever won four races in one day at Hollywood Park. And you have to go back to his days a lifetime ago as a quarter horse trainer when he won four races with 2-year-olds.

Rick Henson, general manager of Hollywood Park, is leaving the track to take a similar position with the Woodlands, a horse-greyhound track in Kansas City, Kan. R.D. Hubbard, chief executive officer of Hollywood Park, also operates the Woodlands. Rick Baedeker, who has been general manager of the Woodlands, is joining Hollywood Park as vice president of marketing.

In a sign of potential trouble for California horse racing, trainer John Shirreffs, who guided Zenyatta to prominence, has decided to move to Belmont Park in New York with a stable of horses at the end of April. "Belmont Park has been wonderful to me," Shirreffs said Saturday after his 3-year-old, Omega Star, won the $200,000 Echo Eddie Stakes at Santa Anita. Shirreffs has been based at Hollywood Park, which could be closing at the end of this year. Shirreffs said an assistant trainer will also be in charge of horses at Santa Anita.

While working at Hollywood Park Casino, Tafere Haileselassie has been able to achieve what some say is the American Dream. The Ethiopian immigrant said he put his two children through college and bought a house in the Crenshaw district, all on the tips and minimum-wage salary he earned as a porter at the Inglewood card club. But come March, when a new manager is scheduled to take over the daily operations of the aging casino, Haileselassie and about 600 workers may be out of jobs.