My favorite California track will soon be now more. Just what we need, another housing development for millionaires! Hollywood was the most innovative track in racing history regarding gambling, always friendly to the bettor. The track as a training facility was also the best in So Cal. if not the country. Though Santa Anita is usually thought of as the quintessential California track, Hollywood is really the place where racing became cool.
Heck, Oliver Hardy used to go there after shooting Laurel and Hardy episodes, no other track can ever say that!
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/more/news/20130510/betfair-hollywood-park-closing.ap/
That real estate is just worth too much for any other solution. With the market now recovering, this was inevitable. Would have happened sooner if not for the crash of 2008.
Now they can race more at Fairplex and Los Al--heaven help us!
Dana,
Have you ever been to Hollywood Park?
Wow Dana, its a distant 3rd for me. Went a few times in the mid 90\'s, again in 2007. Attended a BC, Gold Cup, and Gold Rush day. Its not a bad place, but compared to SA and DMR??
To be honest with you, I don\'t think many millionaires are moving in.
To Rich and P-Dub. I like(d) it b/c I WON big bucks there. I have a strange character trait for a gambler. I love announcers who call my horses and tracks where I can cash. If the track is the best ever built and I can\'t cash a ticket in 1000 races, like Santa Anita or Belmont for example, I somehow dislike the experience. The Santa Anita surface sucks though, it always has, old/new, synth/dirt. Most trainers love the Hollywood surface for training by the way--never would have been a Zenyatta without that cushion. I didn\'t spend much time at Hollywood in recent decades, but back in the 70s when I was a kid I used to love the seedier parts of LA. Been there a few times. In my old age, if I go to Cali now. which is RARE, I go only to Del Mar/Orange County. Loved it back then though. Maybe I just loved everything back then.
Really, you don\'t think that\'s prime real estate? I wonder how much they sold it for?
Dana666 Wrote:
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> To Rich and P-Dub. I like(d) it b/c I WON big
> bucks there. I have a strange character trait for
> a gambler. I love announcers who call my horses
> and tracks where I can cash. If the track is the
> best ever built and I can\'t cash a ticket in 1000
> races, like Santa Anita or Belmont for example, I
> somehow dislike the experience. The Santa Anita
> surface sucks though, it always has, old/new,
> synth/dirt. Most trainers love the Hollywood
> surface for training by the way--never would have
> been a Zenyatta without that cushion. I didn\'t
> spend much time at Hollywood in recent decades,
> but back in the 70s when I was a kid I used to
> love the seedier parts of LA. Been there a few
> times. In my old age, if I go to Cali now. which
> is RARE, I go only to Del Mar/Orange County. Loved
> it back then though. Maybe I just loved everything
> back then.
I loved Led Zeppelin in the 70\'s. Doesn\'t mean I think they should be busting out a new album soon (though credit to Robert Plant for hooking up, musically at least, with Alison Krause). Some of that music might have even led to a \"big score.\" Still doesn\'t mean I think those bands should be propped up on stage in Vegas, or on some reunion tour. I\'ve never been inside Hollywood, but I stayed in a motel within spitting distance of it a few years ago, and if I had a million to spare, I wouldn\'t plunk it down in that general vicinity. But, gentrification takes all forms. In any event, Dana, if you had a good and profitable time there, savor the memory. Quite often, the passage of time will create significant dissonance between the memory and the current reality.
You could sell it for a lot of money but it doesn\'t mean millionaires are moving in. Commercial development connected to LAX is more likely. Just saying.
Bloodhorse article says 3,000 residential units and condos so I am wrong about the LAX connection.
Thank you.
This is the type of post that makes this board a must read.
Ain\'t that the truth!
Hollywood Park ought to be levelled, just as Nicholson needed to be suffocated at the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo\'s Nest. Sad? Yes. But the alternative--keeping it there as a rebuke to the people who lobotomized it--would be even sadder.
\"just as Nicholson needed to be suffocated at the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo\'s Nest\"
Hey! No spoiler alert?
Sounds like I\'m on safe ground that Hollywood never cracked the top ten of my \"must visit\" bucket list of racetracks. Thanks, guys.
\"Lobotomy, schlobotomy, it couldn\'t happen here,\" as the Maryland Racing Commission is wont to say, \" we prefer to see our brains as half-full.\"
My first trip to HOL was in 1987 as a college senior to the Ferdinand/Alysheba BC Classic. Pull that one up on YouTube, one of the great races and race calls (by a young Tom Durkin) you will ever see. Was lucky enough to get back there again around 2002/2003. There are worse things than sitting at Whittingham\'s Pub overlooking the finish line... yes, outside the track isn\'t the best, but being inside the facility is a joy I will never forget.
I felt that way about Hialeah. And its gone too. Where Seattle Slew started his Triple Crown season and many others. Back in the day when the Flamingo was a major Derby Prep. Times and locations in almost any business always change. Calif needs a plan to at the very least save their storied history.....