INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Beginning in 1938, Hollywood Park has been the site for scores of great horses and dozens of great races during its 75-year lifespan.
Distilling all those races into a top-25 list is nigh impossible, for while there are several races that are obvious to include, the line between which races just make the cut and which ones barely miss is no wider than the margin by which Ferdinand beat Alysheba in the 1987 Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Once there was a very special racetrack, a bold, proud, brassy sporting palace of lakes, flowers, and an exotic species known as the goose girl, conjured up by movie moguls, frequented by celebrities, beloved by the masses. It was the place to see or be seen, whether you were a celebrity, a political figure, an industry titan, horse owner, or racing fan.
Vic Stauffer
Track announcer since 2001
“My favorite memory would be around Zenyatta. She changed horse racing, I think, or certainly resurrected it for a while. I always thought of her as being part of the Hollywood Park family. Her first two starts were here, and she [made] 8 of [her] 19 [starts] here.
“People will come up to me and say, ‘Your calls of Zenyatta, they were good calls’. I say, ‘They were good calls because all I wanted to do was convey what I was thinking and feeling when I watched her do her thing.’
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Trainer Doug O’Neill was fined $1,500 on Thursday by Betfair Hollywood Park’s stewards for an incident at Del Mar that resulted in the scratch of his horse out of a race there.
The O’Neill trainee Cinco de Mario was scratched from the fifth race at Del Mar on Aug. 24 after Luis Juaregui, a safety steward for the California Horse Racing Board, observed the horse being treated at O’Neill’s barn inside the four-hour deadline for pre-race treatment.
Officials at Charles Town are optimistic live racing will resume Friday night after three consecutive cancellations this week on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday due to weather-related track issues.
Erich Zimny, vice president of racing operations, explained that the combination of rain, followed by sub-freezing temperatures, made things difficult to conduct a safe racing program.
Will Take Charge is in light training at Oaklawn Park and could make his first start as a 4-year-old in the Feb. 8 Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park, trainer D. Wayne Lukas said early Thursday from Oaklawn in Hot Springs, Ark.
Lukas said owner Willis Horton has kept him abreast of negotiations in a possible partial sale of Will Take Charge to a breeding farm and that a deal appears imminent. Horton and Lukas already have announced the colt definitely will race next year.
Jaime Rodriguez won two races on Tuesday’s closing-day card at Finger Lakes to finish with 149 winners and his first riding title at the western New York track.
Rodriguez, 22, who was third with 125 winners in his first season riding at Finger Lakes in 2012, won the richest race of his career when he guided Wired Bryan to victory in this season’s $237,457 New York Breeders’ Futurity.
John Davila Jr. finished second with 129 wins. Wilfredo Rohena was third with 114 wins.
Charlie Smith did not bother to hedge his bets with String King, the top Louisiana-bred in training. After earlier indicating he was considering cross-entering String King, winner of the past two runnings of the Louisiana Champions Day Turf, in both that $100,000 race and the $150,000 Classic, Smith put all his eggs in one basket by putting his star runner in just one event – the 1 1/8-mile Classic – when entries were finalized Wednesday for Saturday’s program at Fair Grounds.
