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BETWEEN RACES By Oscar Otis HOLLYWOOD PARK, Inglewood, Calif., June 11. Hollywood Park, with pardonable pride, presents its first major stake of of t,h the lush lush summer summer of of t,h the lush lush summer summer season, the 00,000 Californian at a mile and one-sixteenth tomorrow, and this milestone in Hollywoods progress is as good a time as any to pause and take stock of the Hollywood meeting in particular and, the Coast racing in general. It was our good fortune fortune to to talk talk to to Jim Jim fortune fortune to to talk talk to to Jim Jim Stewart, vice-president and general manager of Hollywood Park, who is now well into his second season as executive director of the big Hollywood plant under president Marvyn LeRoy. "For the -time being, at least," says Stewart, we have reached the end of a planned expansion program, and during this season and the next few years, we will concentrate on making our present facilities more attractive to and appealing to our patrons. AAA "Hollywood Park is operating on the theory of endeavoring to attract people in volume, and while we will be about even with last year by seasons end, I think this is in reality a gain, because of current general conditions. On the Memorial Day week end, we catered to more than li3,000 people in two days, and I made a dozen personal checks of the entire grounds on both days, and my opinion is that the average fan of today wants a place to sit down between races, if possible. Hence we will devote a lot of effort to providing areas of that type. AAA "I do believe that a lot of the future growth and popularity of Hollywoood Park racing will come from citizens residing within the Southern California area. While no exact check is possible, we seem to find that, percentagewise, tourists are less important than they were a few years back. Of course, we intend to keep the tourists coming, as always, but the majority of new friends from racing will come from Southern California itself. Thats why we are working so hard to solve any traffic difficulties, although this problem is not as bad as you might think. On Decoration Day, with more than 64,000 people on the grounds, the parking areas were pretty well cleared in well under an hour. The last vestiges of traffic snarls near the track are being solved by the use of the helio-copter, which was used to good advantage Holly park Stresses Public Comfort Growth to Come From Local Fqns Stewart Explains Breeders View early in the season to survey traffic from the air and relay instructions back to the track gate and nearby intersections as to how traffic should be routed for the most speed. We will use the heliocopter in the future only on big. days. . A A A "As for any pressing problems confronting Hollywood Park or racing,. I see none of the moment excepting the ever-present problems of taxation. Any. studies and analyses of California racing will pretty much prove that its growth and progress" was made possible only by fair tax laws, and the Califoria laws are fair when compared to many other areas in the nation, especially New York. But any greater burdens would have the immediate effect of making a cut in -purses mandatory, and that, in turn, would cheapen the racing and start it on a downward slide. AAA "Hollywood Park definitely feels that the California breeding industry has come of age and for that reason, we have discontinued our annual donation to the breeders. During the formative years of the association and the industry, we felt that we had a moral obligation to help the breeders attain maturity, but now they have reached it, and are able financially to stand on their own feet, I feel such a donation is no longer necessary or even desirable. The breeders are a solvent and going organization, and their only loser is the magazine, and it is my understanding that steps are being taken to enable the magazine to pay its own way. AAA "The breeders are quite able to carry on their own affairs successfully without aid from Hollywood Park. But we are wholeheartedly in favor of the breeders awards, and feel that- these awards, which amounted to 1,820 last season from Hollywood Park alone, "are a concrete base for a breeding incentive. If you have any doubts as to the over-all improvement of the breed in California, you need only look at the number of California horses winning in all kinds of competition, plus the item that the one California-bred race a day, as required by law, is no longer, at any time, ever embarassing to the association, quality-wise. AAA "As for Hollywood Parks racing programs, I think we are on the right track. The two-year-old emphasis of last year and the year before is beginning to pay dividends for we are well on our way toward developing our own stake horses and popular farites. At the -same time, we are hopeful that our programs will attract more and more good horses and perhaps stables from the Midwest and East Coast and thus further upgrade the type of racing we will offer our patrons, and of course, this type of racing, coupled with even greater comfort and facility for the patron, is what we are banking upon to steadily increase the general popularity and acceptance of racing with the public. We are keeping a careful check of the percentage of two-year-old races offered at every track in the Country, and we are ahead of most tracks in this respect, and in any event, are right with the leaders. As for prestige, I checked the figures of Daily Racing Pork the other day as to money winning leaders in America this year, and we have four of the top five on the grounds, and the fifth, Correlation, is reported flying home early next week. AAA "Hollywood Park is sincerely interested in working out a date schedule that will be fair to every track in the state and I believe this can. be done. We have no set formula as to dates, excepting one point, and that is, over a reasonable period of years, we feel that the dates in Los Angeles County should be equally divided. Between Santa Anita and Hollywood Park . Nor are I We too unhappy about the percentage arrangement on purses. If business goes up, purses go up, and this in turn could make easier the attainment of our goal of even1 better horses in the summer time when we are in. competition with some of the biggest tracks in America. Healthy competition, I might add. AAA "At the moment at least, I see no advantage in your idea that the infield might be converted into a public area. For one thing, our stands are now geared to . . ;om-odate in comfort upwards of 60,000 people and our emphasis on improving the interior areas will make it even greater. You are quite right in your assumption that when Hollywood Park made its infield into an area of lakes and flowers we may have been compensating a bit for a lack of a mountain in the background, such as is possessed by Santa Anita. But eve if we tossed our lakes and flowers to the winds, I dont think we would gain any advantage. Maybe it would be necessary if we got to the point of crowds of 100,000 or more, but then again, maybe another deck on the stand with elevators and escalators might be even more desirable."
