Has Anyone Else Heard This VERY INTERESTING So. Calif. Racing Rumor?

[Turfday]

Churchill Downs, which owns Hollywood Park, and Magna, which owns Santa Anita, have actually collaborated and are working with an Indian tribe or tribes in the Palm Springs area.

They apparently are on the verge of a deal that will have the following effect:

1) A brand new, "state-of-the-art" boutique type racetrack with simulcast facilty will be built somewhere out in the Palm Springs / Palm Desert area on Indian land?? complete with slot machines.

2) The track will not have nearly as large a stable area as Santa Anita or Hollywood Park, as the theory is that many horses will remain stabled at Santa Anita and van to the new track a day or two before their actual start, which is about an 1 1/2-2 hour van ride from Santa Anita. This also means LESS land is necessary.

3) When this new track is complete, Hollywood Park will close and the land, except for the simulcast facility and card club, will be sold off to developers.

4) Hollywood Park's racing dates will be SWAPPED with Santa Anita's. The new desert facility will take Santa Anita's dates. Racing in the desert between the end of December and the middle of April is feasible. During the summer, it would be oppressively hot, and ridiculous to even consider.

5) Somehow the Churchill/Magna/Indians will all be involved in the new track and profits???

6) The Indians will now JOIN and help lobby for Santa Anita to get a limited number of slot machines.

7) There was also supposedly some cooperative talk about Gulfstream (Magna) receiving additional racing dates from Calder (Churchill).

8) Obviously if this is actually true, it will still be a couple of years away as it would take at least that long for a track to be built in the So. Calif. desert area.

Has anyone heard anything close to this, can confirm this, or has more to add?

[ratpack]

The only thing that I have heard from some people who work at both SA and Hol is that the Orange County Deal has definitly fell through.

Also Pomona has begun working on enlarging it oval to 1 mile but those plans have been in the works for some time.

That plan you speak of in Palm Springs is interesting but having cooperation between CD and Magna, God is the world coming to an end.

[Turfday]

nm

[Turfday]

nm

[ratpack]

Why don't they just run both meets at Santa Anita and be done with it.

[Hosshead]

Santa Anita would be a very HOT place to run races during the summer.
Compared to the ocean breeze blowing across Hollywood Park.

[ratpack]

Santa Anita would be a very HOT place to run races during the summer.
Compared to the ocean breeze blowing across Hollywood Park.

Sort of true. These are the average HIGH Temps between Inglewood and Arcadia April 69-71, May 71-75, June 73-82, July 77-87. A little uncomfortable maybe but I think the mild winters make up for that. Hell they ride back east in 10 degree weather so riding in the high in 80's is hardly being in a Gulag.

[Turfday]

Perhaps they'll only race two weeks in July and perhaps Del Mar will acquire an extra week. Lots up in the air if any of this is actually true.

[ratpack]

Did you also hear anything about Fairplex lobbying for those Hollywood dates?

They had been planning that 1M oval for a few years now but they are talking about a new grandstand and clubhouse if they get those dates.

[Suff]

Related or Unrelated I don't know. I doubt it, But Figured I'd throw it up just on The -California-Casino-Indian- Connection that is mentioned in an Article from the Business section of a Boston Paper this week.


Foxwoods, which has formed a development company to pursue additional deals, is exploring a slot machine venture of its own in Pennsylvania.

Foxwoods' development team has also inked a consulting deal with a California tribe and is helping an Arizona tribe put together casino plans.

Like Vegas titans Harrah's and MGM, the American Indian gambling powerhouses are looking to do more than just finance faceless slot parlors. They also want to build a brand as recognizable to casinogoers in California as it is in Massachusetts.

http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=67624

[delayjf]

I was under the impression that the indian casinos in Cal DON'T want the competition of slots in the tracks and/or card casinos. Seems to me that once that ball got rolling, it would be hard to stop. That was the threat Arnold used to get the indian casinos to fork over more money. Either payup or we'll end your(the indian casinos) slot monopoly in California.

[ratpack]

I was under the impression that the indian casinos in Cal DON'T want the competition of slots in the tracks and/or card casinos. Seems to me that once that ball got rolling, it would be hard to stop. That was the threat Arnold used to get the indian casinos to fork over more money. Either payup or we'll end your(the indian casinos) slot monopoly in California.

You are right they don't. I am by no means an expert on these compacts that Arnold is negotiating with the tribes. I glanced through a few of them and it seems that they all have a mileage provision that no one can operate another venture within 45 to 60 miles of there casino. That would seem to leave open the possibility that tracks like SA, Hol, Los Al and Fairplex could get slots because they would fall outside that mileage restriction.

One other thing is that Arnold is only asking the tribes for the corporate tax rate of 8 1/2% don't places like Foxwood give 25%.

[ratpack]

While Hollywood Park is not mentioned in this article this was the property in Irvine, CA that was rumored to be the next home of the new Hollywood Park.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/state/la-me-eltoro17feb17,1,4447445.story?coll=la-news-state&ctrack=2&cset=true

[CryingForTheHorses]

Magna is banking hard on getting the slots to south Florida tracks as i'm sure Churchhill is also. The purses here in Florida arent very good and you are at a place where there is nowhere to go.In the mid alantic region you have several tracks to run at. If Florida doesnt get the slots it will be a huge blow to horseracing in florida. As for Calder (churchill) giving up dates to Magna I havent heard anything lke that around here.The indians may not want the slots at racetracks but Im sure they wouldnt mind if the track was on their land

[rrbauer]

Just sell the grandstand area to an Indian tribe. It becomes a reservation. Voila, slots are legal and nobody needs to build a new anything. The status quo will have been preserved vis-a-vis racing dates and while the CHRB, TOC and Arnold are arguing over how to split the slot money the dwindling field sizes will have leveled out at two.

To compensate for the loss of trifecta and superfecta handle, there will be forty match races per day (eight per hour), four new Pick-10 bets and thirty-nine doubles. Quinella players will be relieved to hear that the guy who used to run the Three-card Monte game in the parking lot at Hollywood Park is now booking quinella bets. His rationale is that keeping track of two horses is easier than keeping track of three cards!

Absurd? I'll tell you what's absurd: The CHRB will have banned milkshakes, shortcakes, twinkie pies and juicy lucies; and, they will have moved up the scale of weights so that the jocks didn't have to do enemas and puke at the same time to make their weight. While that was happening, of the fifty-two trainers who were required to stable their horses at the retention barn because of some "two parts per million" positive, most will have shipped their horses to points east and will be racing there. And, the horseplayers? Hey, those dime supers and night racing all over the internet keep a guy hopping; and, they beat the hell out of Law and Order reruns! Bling. Bling.