Hollywood gets OK to cut back to four-day race weeks
Hollywood Park, which has had trouble filling its fields since the meet began on April 22 because of a dwindling horse population in California, e-mailed the following press release early Friday night. I think it's a positive move. Hopefully, it will lead to larger fields the remaining four days of the week. I've maintained for years now that there is an oversaturation of horse racing in Southern California, and this may help alleviate the problem.
INGLEWOOD -- Hollywood Park has been granted approval by the California Horse Racing Board to adopt a four-day racing week through Sunday, June 14.
As a result, the following changes have been made to the schedule:
There will be simulcast wagering only on Wednesday, May 20; Thursday, May 28; Wednesday, June 3, and Wednesday, June 10. Wednesday, May 27 was originally a dark day and remains a dark day.
Live racing will be conducted Thursdays through Sundays with the exception of a special program MemoriaI Day week on Monday, May 25.
"Hopefully this will result in a better product for our patrons," track president Jack Liebau said. "Due to the tough economy, the number of horses available to race has been reduced as evidenced by the entry box."
Hollywood Park will continue to offer free general admission on Thursdays with live racing as well as $1 hot dogs, sodas and beers (12 noon until 3 p.m.).
The CHRB will re-consider Hollywood Park's request to maintain a four-day live racing day week for the remainder of the Spring/Summer Meet at its June 5 board meeting.
The changes were supported by the Thoroughbred Owners of California and the California Thoroughbred Trainers.
Things must really be bad at HP. Jack Libeau recently said he would only cut back if absolutely necessary because of the impact upon the workers losing 20% of their pay (those paid on a daily basis). Yet, this is something that should have been done years ago when Wednesday attendance was below 2,000 a day. Now get us full-card simulcasting and some of those jobs will come back.
Greg,
You're right. It's never a good thing when you see workers lose 20 percent of their pay, but if there is full-card simulcasting like you suggest, some of those workers will be needed at the track on the dark days.
It definitely should help attract larger fields, and I suspect the move was made because management felt it was looking at possible future cancellations like the one on April 30 when they couldn't fill an eight-race card. Why they then turned around and ran a 12-race card two days later is anybody's guess.
Racing in California is definitely struggling right now and unfortunately steps like these must be taken. The good thing is that these people still have jobs, they will just have to take a pay cut for the time being like many of the rest of us. Not good times any way you look at it.