Hollywood Park: Harrington sends Alpine Luck, Better Bet in final stakes

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – On Sunday’s final day of live racing in the history of Betfair Hollywood Park, the focus of the day’s premier race will be on the future. There are 11 California-bred 2-year-olds entered for the $200,000 King Glorious Stakes.

Hollywood Park will close as live racing venue after Sunday’s 11-race program. Simulcasting will shift to the adjacent casino next week. The barn area and main track will remain open for training until the end of January.

By the first of February, the horses will be gone, transferred to other tracks and training centers. The bulldozers are scheduled to hit Hollywood Park in 2014, with the racetrack property to be replaced by residential and commercial development.

The King Glorious will be the final stakes in track history, and three trainers based at Hollywood Park in recent years have prominent runners in the seven-furlong stakes – Mike Harrington, Jerry Hollendorfer, and Leonard Powell.

Harrington starts the stakes winners Alpine Luck and Better Bet, Powell starts the turf stakes winner Aotearoa, and Hollendorfer runs the promising maiden race winner Pray Hard.

Alpine Luck and Better Bet each was comprehensively beaten in his last start, but won a stakes before that.

Alpine Luck, owned by Heinz Steinmann, was eighth in the Juvenile Turf Sprint Stakes on the hillside turf course at Santa Anita on Nov. 2.

“We wanted to see if he could handle the turf, and he didn’t handle it at all,” Harrington said.

Alpine Luck won the Hollywood Juvenile Championship against open company here in July.

Better Bet, owned by Harrington, won the Golden State Juvenile at Santa Anita on Nov. 1, but was last of eight after a poor start in the Real Quiet Stakes against open company Nov. 23. Better Bet raced near the front throughout the Golden State Juvenile over a mile.

“You have to wonder about Better Bet, if he caught a speed-favoring track,” Harrington said regarding the Golden State Juvenile. “He did fall down coming out of the gate last time, which probably compromised him. They’re both horses that have the talent to win.”

Pray Hard needed five races to beat maidens, doing so impressively by 5 1/4 lengths in a six-furlong race Nov. 30. He fought for the lead throughout before drawing off in early stretch.

Aotearoa won the Zuma Beach Stakes over a mile on turf at Santa Anita on Oct. 6, but was seventh of 13 in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf on Nov. 1. In his last race, the Grade 3 Generous Stakes over a mile on turf at Hollywood Park on Nov. 30, Aotearoa closed from sixth with a wide rally in the final furlong to finish second, 1 1/4 lengths behind Global View.

“He ran very well last time, but he had a [bad] trip,” Powell said. ”The winner got a good trip. If you reverse the trips, you reverse the placings.”

Aotearoa trains on Hollywood Park’s synthetic track, but has never raced on the surface. Powell is encouraged that Aotearoa won a sprint for maidens on the synthetic track at Del Mar during the summer.

“Hopefully, he’ll be stalking and make a good run at the end,” Powell said. “Next year, I think he’ll be running around two turns.”

Anything could happen next year for Aotearoa and the other runners in the King Glorious Stakes. For Hollywood Park, there is nothing beyond Sunday.