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"" ■-; ;.;.- ; ... . . .Mf. lhursdoy# May y, 1957 California By Oscar Otis — Lavish Hollypark Opens Summer Season Goes Into High Gear With Caltfornian Strongest Emphasis Ever on Juveniles HOLLYWOOD PARK, Inglewood, Calif., May 8. — Hollywood Park, which officially styles itself as the "Track of the Lakes and Flowers" but which by popular demand is dubbed as a course with "the firstest with the mostest" opens its gates for its 55-day summer spin Thursday. While the first few days will be interesting enough, the meeting will get into high gear during its second full week with the May 25 renewal of the 00,000 added Calif ornian at _a mile and one-sixteenth. By spotting this "hundred grander" early in the season, a high plateau of interest is created in the Los Angeles area, that in past years has lasted right through the closing day, July 23, when another "hundred grander," the mile and five-furlong Sunset Handicap, is decided. The other two of that value are the Westerner for three-year-olds, and the Gold Cup, which is 00,000 guaranteed, leaving the exact amount of added money open, but if past experience may be taken as a guide, it will amount to about 40,000 in added money, making it technically the richest race in the world insofar as money put up by the association Is concerned. One of the more interesting sidelights on Hollywood Parks build-up this year is the great amount of copy the tracks publicity department has turned out on two-year-olds. This is a positive sign that the two-year-old programs of first Del Mar, then Hollywood, and more lately the northern California tracks, are beginning to pay off in public interest. There are at least a dozen prominent youngsters, while of the non-starters, there are quite a few who are certain to command a deal of attention because of either their high sales prices, or, as in the case of Rex Ellsworth, their breeder. Ellsworth has that full brother of Swaps, as yet unstarted. His mere connection with Swaps is enough to make him extremely newsworthy in this part of the world, where Swaps is a magical name, so magical, in fact, that he provided Hollywood Park shareholders with a hit of an extra dividend last year as well as considerable general revenue to all horsemen. . Swaps brought an estimated 30,000 extra folks through the turnstiles last summer, and the extra people, and subsequent extra wagering, was the reason for the purse boost. Purses in Balance With Handle Hollywoods overnight program of purses, richest in the world, is changed about with every issue of the condition book so that purse distribution will remain in balance with the money handled and not pile up a lot of money toward the end of the season, and thus give cheap horses who just happen to race the last week or 10 days much the best of it. Our own guess is that the play will be up sharply this summer for several reasons, all of them valid, and it could hit the tidy figure of ,300,000 average. While Swaps isnt around to create the headlines, the horses on the grounds are the best balanced group Hollywood has ever had, the three-year-old division is stronger than you might imagine, and the handicap ranks, if it lacks a standout, has at least 20 name horses who are worthy of headlines. Then again, Hollywood Park is rich in imported horses, and that again will be a help. The asteristic group is comprised of horses who already have made their mark in American racing, like Holandes II., plus some only recently shipped in from South America, plus a "name" horse like El Kobar, hailed in the New Zealand press as being the best horse to leave the Antipodes lor the United States since Phar Lap. El Kobar may wind up being sold to United States interests as a stud, but if not, following his Hollywood campaign, he will be sent East, eventually to England, and thence back to New Zealand. Such a trip would make him, so far as we can learn, the first thoroughbred to circle the globe, as he would return from England via the Suez Canal and Indian Ocean. While in Kentucky, A. B. "Bull" Hancock furnished us with the New Zealand and Australian press file on El Kobar, and to say the press observers there were enthusiastic over his performances would be a gross understatement. El Kobar s owner, Woolf Fisher, is currently visiting in England but will return to the Los Angeles area early in June. Track to Host NASRC Conclave Additional interest in the racing will be created by the annual convention of the National Association of State Racing Commissioners, scheduled in early June. Hollywood Park is delighted at the prospects of showing its natty plant and brand of sport to racings rulers, and the schedule of the convention has been so drawn up that the conventioneers will have ample time to take in all the racing at Hollywood Park they desire. Now, if the Thoroughbred Racing Associations would come West next December, as many of its members have urged, it would make the year in California complete. The NASRC is wise, we believe, in meeting in different pares of the country each convention in order Continued on Page Forty-Ca- CALIFORNIA Bt OSCAR OTIS Continued from Page Four to bring to various areas the public relations values that such conventions create. Hollywood is "overlapping" three days with Bay Meadows, but it is an overlap which is not causing any concern. The two managements have worked out any problems resulting from the overlap in harmony, and stalls positively have been reserved for all horses staying at Bay Meadows through the close there next Saturday. In addition, Hollywood has maintained only minor stakes at sprint distances during the first part of its meeting, with the 5,000 Hollywood Premiere on Thursday, opening day, the Debonair for three-year-old colts and geldings, also at six furlongs on Saturday, the Goose Girl for three-year-old fillies at six furlongs and 5,000 next Tuesday, the 0,000 Los Angeles Handicap at seven furlongs a week from Saturday. Such a stakes schedule is entirely non-conflicting with those offered in the North. It is noteworthy in the Hollywood stakes breakdown, there are 17 stakes for two and three-year-olds as against only 13 for three and older. It is true that the threes and older get slightly the most of the ,125,000 in added money, but even so, the rise in the significance of the younger horses, in both opportunities to become stakes winners and in earnings, is significant. The Starlet, for instance, one of the nine stakes for two-year-olds, is a 5,000 added race. And Hollywood says its 35,000 earmarked for juveniles is the richest such program over a 55-day span in the natior
