Track’s Future a Big Topic

The horses might be back at Hollywood Park, but speculation about the sale of the 68-year-old track isn’t going away.

On the eve of the opening of Hollywood’s 64-day season, two California racing officials, asking that they not be named, said Thursday that Churchill Downs Inc., which owns the Inglewood track, had turned down an offer for the property from Bay Meadows.

One source said that the offer, from the Bay Meadows Land Development Co., which owns the track in San Mateo, was at least $175 million and might have reached $200 million. Churchill Downs Inc., whose flagship track is the home of the Kentucky Derby, bought Hollywood Park in 1999 for $140 million.

“We can’t comment,” said Julie Koenig Loignon, a corporate spokeswoman for Churchill Downs. “All I can say is that we’re still exploring our options, and there is no time frame.”

Officials of Bay Meadows Development, including chairman Terrence E. Fancher, couldn’t be reached for comment. Had the deal gone through, according to one of the sources, Bay Meadows would have continued to operate Hollywood Park as a racetrack. There have been rumors that other potential buyers of the 240 acres would demolish the track and use the land for commercial development.

Bay Meadows leased its track to Magna Entertainment Corp., which owns Santa Anita and other tracks, until Fancher’s company took over the operation of the facility this year.

Hollywood Park’s season, which opens tonight and runs through July 17, will be highlighted by the 66th running of the Hollywood Gold Cup, a $750,000 race, July 9. The first major event of the meet is Sunday’s California Gold Rush, 10 races, worth $1.31 million, for California-breds.

Richard Shapiro is a member of the California Horse Racing Board and one of those predicting that Hollywood Park will be sold.

“I think Churchill is testing the market right now,” Shapiro said Thursday. “They’ve put the property in play. They’re trying to determine what kind of value the land has for non-racing investors.”

Churchill Downs has been disappointed with the financial performance of Hollywood Park. Tom Meeker, chief executive of Churchill, told analysts in mid-March that an announcement regarding the future of the track would be made in a few months.

“I’m glad Tom made a public statement,” said Rick Baedeker, president of Hollywood Park. “All the speculation about a sale has been disconcerting for our employees. But it’s less [awkward] than before to be doing our jobs, because now we’ve got the races to zero in on. At least now we can focus on the running of the meet.”

Fields for the opening weekend are fairly large, by Hollywood Park standards, but Baedeker said that there were about 250 stall vacancies among the 2,000 available. Baedeker said that some horsemen had chosen to keep their stock at Santa Anita. He also said that trainer Wally Dollase had moved his stable to Kentucky and Bobby Frankel, who has led the trainers at Hollywood 13 times, had shipped many of his horses to the Midwest and East Coast, as he did last year.

The Cal National Snow Chief Stakes, at $250,000, is the richest race on Sunday’s Gold Rush card.

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Eight horses, including Rockport Harbor, are entered at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., for Saturday’s $325,000 Coolmore Lexington Stakes, the last prep for the Kentucky Derby on May 7.