Hollywood Park’s final days looming

There are only nine calendar days until the last summer meet at Betfair Hollywood Park ends on July 14. Then after the final 28-day fall meet ends on Dec. 22, the track of “Lakes and Flowers” will be closed forever.

It’s sad to see such an iconic sports venue shuttered. However, that’s considered progress. A multibillion-dollar commercial project eventually will be built on the site in Inglewood, Calif.

Hollywood Park’s neighbor across the street, the Great Western Forum, saw its halcyon days end when the Lakers and Kings moved to the Staples Center. Neighborhoods change, and in the sports world, new is always considered better.

The horse racing industry has seen its share of racetracks come and go. Up north in the state, Bay Meadows bit the dust a few years ago. The Northern California circuit has maintained with Golden Gate Fields as the anchor track and with the summer fair meets.

I suspect survivor mode will kick in with Southern California. Del Mar and Santa Anita will carve up the prime Hollywood Park dates with scraps shared between Fairplex and possibly Los Alamitos.

Some experts consider Hollywood Park’s closure a major nail in the coffin for Southern California horse racing. I say not so fast, and I have history on my side.

When I first started in horse racing at the New York Racing Association, I learned about the history of New York racing. In 1955, when the NYRA was first chartered, there was a fifth racetrack along with Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga. It was the old Jamaica Racetrack, which was a few miles to the east of Aqueduct in Queens, N.Y.

The Jamaica property was sold to help finance the building of a new Aqueduct and, a decade later, Belmont Park.

The proceeds from the sale of Hollywood Park won’t help Del Mar and Santa Anita, per se. The track is owned by the Bay Meadows Land Corp.

However, the racing dates are valuable and will grow the bottom lines of both Del Mar and Santa Anita.

The key issues that remain to be addressed are a third track to buffer between the big two and the building of enough stall space to house the nearly 3,000 racehorses in Southern California.

It’s a tall order. But if the powers-that-be can focus and attack the problems at hand, rather than each other, then they are not insurmountable.

I suspect Hollywood Park’s history can be preserved. A marquee stakes such as the upcoming Hollywood Gold Cup, among many other Grade 1 entities, may find a home on the Del Mar and Santa Anita stakes schedule.

We recently saw the historic Oak Tree meet swallowed up whole by Santa Anita with nary a peep. If Oak Tree was quietly devoured like a fine meal, Hollywood Park’s offering will be eaten like a veritable buffet.

Richard Eng’s horse racing column is published Friday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He can be reached at rich_eng@hotmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @richeng4propick.