By Beth Harris of Associated Press
Fans crowded into Betfair Hollywood Park for the last time Sunday. The track closed for good after the day’s 11 races, ending 75 years of racing that featured such thoroughbred stars as Seabiscuit, Triple Crown winners Citation, Seattle Slew and Affirmed, and Zenyatta. The first Breeders’ Cup in 1984 was run here. The track will be turned into a residential and retail development starting next year.
For its last day, though, the track came alive again, with jammed parking lots, lines at the betting windows, and fans and employees swapping stories about the Track of the Lakes and Flowers. Paid attendance exceeded 13,000 – more than double that of a typical weekend – and after 2 p.m. the gates were opened to everyone to alleviate congestion, a track spokesman said.
It was the largest crowd since 25,837 attended Zenyatta’s last race in California on Oct. 2, 2010. The track bugler announced the final post parade of horses with a medley of “Auld Lang Syne” and “Hooray for Hollywood” before they walked onto the track to the Etta James classic “At Last.”
Dick Van Patten, the 85-year-old actor who starred in TV’s “Eight is Enough,” was a longtime regular. He walked away a winner, when his horse Tanquerray won the $50,000 third race.
Betfair Hollywood Park is the second major California racetrack to close since 2008, when Bay Meadows near San Francisco was shuttered after 74 years to make way for a similar development. Santa Anita, located in Arcadia, will open its winter meet Thursday. Los Alamitos in Orange County will pick up some of Hollywood Park’s racing dates, too.
The track’s future had been in question since it was sold to Hollywood Park Land Co. in 2005. At the time, the new owner said racing would continue for a minimum of three years while an effort was made to revitalize the sport’s business model. But the track had little luck in stemming declines in wagering and attendance, problems that plague the racing industry nationwide. Statewide initiatives to install slot machines at the track also failed.
Hollywood Park opened in 1938 under the direction of movie moguls Jack and Harry Warner. Among the celebrity regulars years ago were Elizabeth Taylor, Jimmy Stewart and Bing Crosby. SAPA-AP
