Betfair Hollywood Park closes for good
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Fans waited in a long line to get into Betfair Hollywood Park for the last time.
The track closed for good Sunday, ending 75 years of racing that featured such thoroughbred stars as Seabiscuit, Triple Crown winners Citation, Seattle Slew and Affirmed, and superstar mare Zenyatta. The first Breeders’ Cup in 1984 was run here. The track will be turned into a residential and retail development starting next year.
For its last day, though, the track came alive again, with jammed parking lots, lines at the betting windows, and fans and employees swapping stories about the Track of the Lakes and Flowers.
Amid the sadness was some bitterness as well.
Jack Van Berg, the 77-year-old Hall of Fame trainer, blamed the cities of Inglewood and Los Angeles and the state of California for the track’s closure.
“I just think it’s a pathetic thing,” he said near the paddock. “It’s ridiculous to let something like this that so many people love and thrive on close. They did everything they could to kill racing.”
Van Berg, who has raced in California for 41 years, said he’s moving his operations to Oaklawn Park in Arkansas.
“I’ve had enough,” he said. “I don’t like California racing anymore. I don’t like the way they run it and what they do.”
Betfair Hollywood Park is the second major California racetrack to close since 2008, when Bay Meadows near San Francisco was shuttered after 74 years to make way for a similar development.
The track’s future had been in question since Churchill Downs sold it to Hollywood Park Land Co. in 2005.
At the time, the new owner said racing would continue for a minimum of three years while an effort was made to revitalize the sport’s business model. But the track had little luck in stemming declines in wagering and attendance, problems that plague the racing industry nationwide. Statewide initiatives to install slot machines at the track also failed.
The track’s 260-acre footprint will be turned into 3,000 housing units, including single-family townhomes and condos; 25 acres of parkland, including a 10-acre central park; and a retail and entertainment district.
Hollywood Park opened in 1938 under the direction of movie moguls Jack and Harry Warner. Among the celebrity regulars years ago were Elizabeth Taylor, Jimmy Stewart and Bing Crosby.
Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert made his first visit from Arizona in the early 1970s.
“The thing I remember most was getting up close to the winner’s circle and seeing Cary Grant,” he said. “That was a thrill.”