Til Fairplex or Delmar can accomodate spring racing this works, but too much Santa is like too much Saratoga. Takes away the mistique the meet has esp. with the Santa fall season. Dunno if you want to make Santa the Aqueduct of the west coast
There aren't a lot of options right now. There has to be another venue to stable and train horses in the Los Angeles area but from a racing standpoint the Los Al and Fairplex expansions proposals fall well below the standards expected of a top-level circuit. Would horsemen rather put up with no turf course (Los Al) or a 6f bullring with a tiny 5f turf course tucked inside (Fairplex) or shuttling to the San Diego area (Del Mar) or a potentially overused turf course (Santa Anita)?
Del Mar can't start its summer meet any sooner because of the fair that runs through July 4. Most likely Santa Anita will take over the Hollywood April-July dates and Del Mar will take over the fall dates.
Are the days of movie stars building a brand new track (like Del Mar) behind us? If Mel Gibson and co are reading this, as I'm sure they are, there's some nice land in the hills between the 101 and Malibu.
The thing that Hollywood Park had going for it during the summer, was that it is fairly close to the ocean with that nice ocean breeze to cool things off.
Santa Anita is going to get hot as hell during that time.
