By CONNIE LEWIS
Most fans cheering on their favorite horses at the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club during the summer probably assumed all was right at the seaside track, which some even refer to as “Camelot.”
Opened in 1937 and rebuilt in the 1990s, the Del Mar Racetrack, set amid the massive 350-acre fairgrounds in eclectic Del Mar south of the county line, puts on summertime meets that are considered among the best in the country.
“There are probably two or three meets that the industry thinks of as Camelots,” said Mac McBride, a Thoroughbred Club spokesman. “The first is Del Mar. Saratoga is the second and the Keeneland race meet in Kentucky is the third.”
Yet while race fans doffed their hats and collected their winnings at the end of another successful season, some thoroughbred owners and trainers fear California’s horse racing industry, which carries a $2.5 billion annual economic impact statewide, will lose out to other states joining the trend of “racinos”,racetracks that also offer casino-style electronic slot machines.
There’s little doubt that horse racing’s heyday has passed. At Del Mar, it started shortly after World War II and ended in the late 1970s, McBride said.
Some say professional football lured crowds away from the tracks. Others contend that young people simply aren’t interested in the ponies.
Del Mar appears to have done a good job of luring younger folks by putting on concerts and beer festivals, among other non-racing activities.
Casino Competition
But Indian casinos,the other game in town,have been blamed for stealing the show at many tracks in recent years.
In order to survive, several states, including New Mexico, West Virginia, Delaware, Iowa and some parishes in Louisiana have legalized slot machines on their tracks and are funneling a portion of those profits into the purses they offer.
That, in turn, has enabled them to attract more horses and draw bigger crowds, said Drew J. Couto, the president of the Arcadia-based Thoroughbred Owners of California, which includes 9,000 licensed owners.
Some of California’s thoroughbreds have departed for greener pastures, Couto said. Just where is uncertain.
“There’s been no formal study,” Couto said. “We know anecdotally, however, that there has been a migration of owners and trainers and horses to those states whose (racetrack) purses are subsidized.”
With about 152,600 thoroughbreds, 82,200 of which are placed in races, California’s horse racing industry is among the largest in the country. But Couto said its days may be numbered, particularly if Florida, New York,two of the other most powerful racing states,and Pennsylvania legalize slot machines at tracks next year, as is expected.
The wakeup call, according to Thoroughbred Times, came when Hollywood Park was sold earlier this summer.
The sale stipulates that Hollywood Park is to be run as a horse racing facility for the next three years. But the expectation is that it could be razed and redeveloped for other commercial uses, unless the state’s racing industry is turned around, McBride said.
Los Alamitos Race Course has felt the pressure, too. The track’s owner, Ed Allred, gave $3.1 million toward Proposition 68, an unsuccessful 2004 initiative that would have authorized 3,000 slot machines at his track.
If attendance at Los Alamitos, Hollywood Park and the fabled Santa Anita Park racetrack in Arcadia continue to flounder, it could be difficult for the Del Mar track to maintain its status.
“If they do well, the spillover for us is good, as we rely on the horses and horsemen of the Southern California circuit,” McBride said. “And if they’re not afforded good opportunities throughout the year, our fear is,and logic tells us,that they’ll go elsewhere where the opportunities are better.”
If West Coast thoroughbred owners ship their horses to the Midwest or mid-Atlantic states to take advantage of the racinos, they’ll have the opportunity to compete for purses that are typically 20% to 30% higher than at other tracks, said Bob Bone, whose thoroughbred, Choctaw Nation, won the San Diego Handicap at Del Mar this summer for the second year in a row.
Bone owns Bob Bone Racing, which has some 80 thoroughbreds at tracks all across the country and also heads Triple Crown Auto Sales near Sacramento.
California Costly
Aside from California, Bone said he has had horses running recently in West Virginia, Kentucky, Arizona, New York and Florida. While he said he’d prefer they continue to race in California, economics will weigh into his decision,including the fact that it is less expensive to care for and feed horses, as well as maintain barns at tracks outside the state.
“I run it like a business, and I have to take everything into consideration,” Bone said. “So if the economics don’t work out (in California), I will have to make a decision.”
The thoroughbred owners association has turned its attention to talking to representatives of the state’s American Indian casinos to come up with ways to compete with racinos.
The tribes are staying mum on the topic.
“We have been discussing the impact that out-of-state racinos have had on the industry and what possible cooperative effort we can make with our California Native Americans to try and help this industry,” Couto said. “But we are not focusing on the idea of putting slots in at racetracks.”
There’s speculation in the racing industry that the tribes will be asked to sweeten the pot at the state’s tracks in exchange for the right increase at their own operations.
Lewis is a staff writer with the San Diego Business Journal.
