Race Tracks

It has been a strange Santa Anita meet so far, almost as strange as Shaquille O'Neal winning a horse race as a jockey, as he did in a Super Bowl commercial. Another racing day was lost Sunday when a heavier-than-expected overnight rain resulted in the day's nine-race card being canceled. The count is now eight racing days lost since the meet opened Dec. 26. "What else can go wrong?" Santa Anita President Ron Charles said.

For the moment, the Great Race Place isn't great. Santa Anita is having the winter of its discontent. Traditionally, the thoroughbred horse race meeting that begins the day after Christmas, at the track at the foot of the scenic snow-topped San Gabriel Mountains, has the most expensive horses in the country and the best jockeys to ride them in an annual showcase for the sport. A sport, it must be pointed out, that badly needs one. This year, tradition has taken a back seat to chaos.

IT'S a special moment for every race driver. You tighten the belts, flip down your visor and -- quietly, in the privacy of your full-face helmet -- say the Shepard's Prayer. That's Alan Shepard, the astronaut: "Please, Lord, don't let me screw up." Actually, I'm paraphrasing. Sitting on the pit road at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, cinched into a recently retired Formula One car, I've got good reason to be spiritual.

The horse racing world Saturday will be focused on Baltimore's Pimlico Race Course for the Preakness, the second leg of the Triple Crown. With one notable exception: TVG. The horse racing and wagering network is prohibited from taking bets for Pimlico because of a dispute over exclusivity. And it will prove costly. For the Kentucky Derby, where the same thing happened to TVG, the results were stark.

BRISTOL, Tenn. -- News flash to the NASCAR world: Bristol Motor Speedway is no longer a slam-bang, temper-boiling, dog-eat-dog racetrack. It has become . . . well . . . nice. Which could dampen its notoriety. In the wee hours of Sunday, Carl Edwards, winner of Saturday night's stunningly tame -- for here -- Sharpie 500, acknowledged there is "going to be a little different type of racing" here.

DEL MAR -- Georgie Boy came from far back in the pack to win the $250,000 Del Mar Futurity on Wednesday, closing day of the 43-day meet before 17,069 at the North San Diego County racetrack. Georgie Boy is owned by 75-year-old George Schwary of Northridge, who has been in the horse racing business for only five years, and trained by 67-year-old Kathy Walsh of Arcadia, who followed her father into the business at a young age.

One of the most influential men in motor sports has his eye on the National Hot Rod Assn., the Glendora-based sanctioning body that oversees most drag racing in the United States. Bruton Smith, whose Speedway Motorsports Inc., rivals the France family's International Speedway Corp. in racetrack ownership, told The Times on Friday he wanted to buy the NHRA's assets. SMI owns three NHRA drag strips, at Las Vegas, Sonoma and Bristol, Tenn.

Daredevils once flew around LAX -- and they never even left the ground. Before Los Angeles International Airport became a bustling modern airport, it included L.A. Municipal Airport Speedway, where cars raced from 1934 to 1936.

Horsemen, racetrack operators and members of the California Horse Racing Board learned about Polytrack on Tuesday at Santa Anita at the first of three informational meetings on synthetic track surfaces. At its February meeting, the CHRB, citing safety concerns, decided to require replacement of dirt tracks with synthetic racing surfaces at thoroughbred tracks in the state with meets longer than four weeks. Such tracks have until the end of 2007 to comply or face the loss of racing dates.

A bill to permit horse tracks to install nearly 13,000 video gambling machines stalled Monday when a key legislator blocked a hearing set for today. Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter), chairman of the governmental organization committee, which was supposed to consider the measure, put off a hearing until mid-August at the earliest. The legislative session concludes at the end of August. Florez said the bill would amount to a huge policy shift.