view raw text
California By Oscar Otis Hollywood Opens Lavish Summer Season Allowance Division Strength Pleasing Merv LeRoys Ideas Basis of Success SuccessHOLLYWOOD HOLLYWOOD PARK Inglewood Calif May 7 Hollywood Park hemispheric leader in such items as daily average attendance and purse distribution and total amount of states for an in ¬ dividual meeting throws open its gates for another 55day meeting Thursday with almost every indi ¬ cation pointing to a successful season But whether or not Holly ¬ wood again for about the tenth successive year shatters its own records especially in the matter of purses and attendance is something else again Personally we think they will But Jim Stewart executive vicepresident is not so sure and would rather wait and see For he like most everybody else in southern California is uncertain as to the impact of big league ball in Los Angeles on race track attendance Also economic conditions here as in many other areas of the nation are not firm in certain fields of business activity activityOur Our guess that the track will break its own marks is based on three observations First the track has made substantial improvements which will allow more fans than ever before an opportunity for luxury en ¬ joyment of the racing programs Second recent spot census checks show that Hollywood Park is drawing from a greater population potential than last year and third an estimate nothing more nor less than an edu ¬ cated guess that big league ball in San Francisco has adversely affected Golden Gate Fields by only a small margin perhaps one per cent Golden Gate is doing well but some feel it might be doing even better were it not for the SF Giants GiantsAbundance Abundance of Middle Grade Horses HorsesThe The most promising aspect of our technical racing is the fact that we are far stronger than last season in our middle grade of horses comments Stewart Stake racing for a season can be judged best only in retrospect for in your stakes you get the best you have and you simply cannot do any better But for your allowance events of which Hollywood Park cards a substantial number in the 7500 to 12500 purse class last year Hollywood had 20 per cent of its over ¬ night races with a purse of 7500 or better plus an ¬ other 23 races right on the border line at 7000 our number of quality horses eligible for such events are by far and away the most Hollywood Park has ever known If you include stakes last year exactly 25 per cent of our racing cards were with purses of not less than 7500 7500This This corner might add that while the threeyearold group racing on the coast at this point is not sensa ¬ tional it is nevertheless a solid and hardhittingclass while the twoyearolds which will be unveiled during the summer appears to have a considerable number whose connections at this point consider them as stakes prospects prospectsOn On the backstretch Hollywood Park has put in an elaborate system of checks and counterchecks on all personnel entering or leaving the stable area and just vhow this will work out nobody cares to predict The idea is that of the state racing commission which chooses to view with alarm the unexplained finding of a couple of cold tablets which two horses somehow ate up at Golden Gate Management of course is will ¬ ing to do anything and everything possible to help the stable control system was a suggestion and it was adopted In the past there has been a good strong stable control subject only to a few failures in human nature but this summer it will really be tight almost military in procedure It is an extra cost to manage ¬ ment a cost which management is willing to assume if the rules and regulations really do any good goodNot Not Ready for PreRace Blood Tests TestsAs As for the highly publicized prerace blood tests to check for stimulation only a miracle could bring this about during the present meeting Asked for manage ¬ ments position in this matter Stewart said We have encouraged meaning financed scientific research into the proposition of prerace tests but so far we have no definite advice as to whether or not the plans are feasible within reasonable cost limitis But the re ¬ search is continuing continuingHollywood Hollywood Park has flourished through the years from a modest beginning on the sound principles of its president Mervyn LeRoy who has the notion that in ¬ trinsically sound racing can be embellished by glitter ¬ ing surroundings coupled with a courteous attitude toward its public which it pampers by accommodations unsurpassed anywhere in this nation Its infield is the most spectacular in the West with six lakes a water ¬ fall cackling geese and a photogenic Goose Girl al ¬ though to this day weve never seen anyone as much as glance at the Goose Girl during the running of a race raceMoreover Moreover i a motorized area Hollywood has taken extreme pains to speed traffic to and from its gates and by actual timing the parking lot disgorges fans at the rate of 1000 per minute A crowd of 40000 for forContinued Continued eti Page fttty One CALIFORNIA CALIFORNIABy By OSCAR OTIS Continued from Page Seven Seveninstance instance will be completely cleared about 40 minutes after the last race For in this part of the world fans can be annoyed and lost to racing by traffic delays out ¬ side the park More than 90 special police officers are on duty Saturdays and holi ¬ days at critical intersections ranging as far as two and onehalf miles from the track This observer feels that to the north Golden Gate will continue to do a strong business in the face of an overlap of about Ewo weeks with Hollywood While many of the top horses have come south those re ¬ maining have established form and that means a lot to a racing fan And by agree ¬ ment with Hollywood Park the stakes of ¬ fered here during the overlap do not con ¬ flict with those offered at the Gate so the horses engaged in stakes in the North will stay there to fulfill them themFor For those in the far western states who cant get to Hollywood Park except maybe on just an occasion we heartily recommend tuning in to the 11 Saturday stakes tele ¬ casts as sponsored by Union Oil They are well done and the filming of the races themselves is accomplished with a high degree of skill The telecasts will be shown on the 13 western stations of the Columbia Broadcasting System including KNXT channel 2 here in Los Angeles AngelesAnd And for those in southern California director of public realtions Al Wesson asks us to mention that on those warm days ahead it is always at least iO degrees cool ¬ er than in downtown Los Angeles and i often as much as 20 degrees cooler than in Arcadia Weather bureau observations officially taken in downtown Los Angeles and at the International Airport just a few minutesdown Century Boulevard from the race track indicate that Wesson is not making any false claims
