GOLDEN GLIMPSES #139

November 3, 1998

By ED GOLDEN

Rip Torn is not just another pretty face.

A stocky, 60-something, ruddy-faced comic actor with the worst toupee this side of the late Howard Cosell, Rip Torn is no Lori Petty. But he is the new celebrity player in the National Thoroughbred Racing Association’s ad campaign for 1999, which will be filmed over four days during the week of Nov. 9 at Calder Race Course in Miami.

Torn, whose film career began in 1959, has amassed screen credits in 75 movies, including mega-blockbuster "Men in Black." From 1993 to 1998, Torn, whose real name is not Shredded Wheat but Elmore Torn, Jr., won widespread acclaim for his role as Artie, the persnickety television producer on HBO’s fall-down-laughing "The Larry Sanders Show," starring Gary Shandling.
Tim Smith, commissioner and CEO of the NTRA, racing’s new "league office" which opened its doors last April 1, elaborated on the switch from Petty, the anemic-looking actress, to the blustery Torn, who was born in Temple, Texas, where his father gave him the nickname, Rip.

"The Lori Petty ads did their job and did them well," Smith said. "They launched the tag line and the brand and got people talking about the ads . . . (but) we looked at what was missing in the ads and strategically, it was male participation, which we wanted. The Petty ads missed conveying the social experience of going to a track with a friend, because she was sort of in there alone.

"So we tried to add some of those elements in the new ads. We challenged the agency (Merkley Newman Harty) to still make the ads edgy, yet memorable. We wanted humor. They came back with some terrific ideas."

Award-winning director Phil Morrison, whose recent commercials include ESPN, Nike, Energizer and Microsoft, will produce and direct the new commercials.

Torn will play the part of a veteran racing enthusiast going to the races with a newcomer to the sport. The campaign will feature slice-of-life vignettes in scenes from the paddock, early morning backstretch, winners’ circle and OTB sites.

"It’s kind of a running theme," Smith said. "Rip Torn is the know-it-all. His friend is a novice and they interact. But it’s meant to convey exactly the same thing (as the Petty ads)--that the experience of participating in this unique sport and game is exciting, enjoyable and different. The tag line will be exactly the same--Go Baby Go."

But we won’t have Lori Petty to kick around any more.

THE HOMESTRETCH: Other news during the NTRA’s three-hour California Conference on Racing held at Santa Anita on Oct. 29: races and air dates for the new NTRA "Champions on Fox" series will feature 10 graded events. The series will kick off Jan. 30 with the Donn Handicap from Gulfstream Park as a lead-in to Fox’s coverage of Super Bowl XXXIII in Miami on Jan. 31; ABC Sports coverage will be expanded on prep races leading up to the VISA Triple Crown Challenge; the NTRA will sponsor a study on the potential impact of account wagering on thoroughbred racing in California. The study will explore the effect on purse levels, pari-mutuel taxes, foal crops and capital investment in equipment and breeding farms. The thoroughbred industry contributes more than $4 billion annually to California’s domestic product and provides 52,500 full-time equivalent jobs. "Whether you are talking about television, entertainment, popular culture or technology, you do not need to be a meteorologist to know that the winds effecting these critical areas most often blow from the West and specifically California," Smith said. "There can be no doubt that California is absolutely critical to racing’s future." . . . Bill Baker, chairman of Santa Anita Enterprises, Inc., had no comment on published reports that a group which he heads is interested in purchase of the 64-year-old Arcadia track from giant REIT Meditrust, which bought Santa Anita a year ago for a reported $458 million. As mentioned in Gaming Today weeks ago, Churchill Downs is considered a leading candidate to purchase Santa Anita. Reportedly, Hollywood Park made an offer but it was rejected . . . Secretariat, the 1973 Triple Crown winner and one of the most popular thoroughbreds in history, will be one of 15 subjects from the 1970s to be honored with a commemorative postal stamp next fall. More than 6.8 million votes were cast by Americans in nationwide balloting in September to decide which 70s icons would be immortalized on U.S. postage stamps to be issued in the fall of 1999 as part of the postal service’s "Celebrate the Century" commemorative stamp and education program. Secretariat was one of three subjects in the sports category (Monday Night Football and the Pittsburgh Steelers were the other two). He received 251,370 votes . . . Hollywood Park, which opens Nov. 11, will offer its usual 7 p.m. post time on Friday nights of Nov. 13 and 20, but Friday post time will move to 12:30 p.m. starting Nov. 27. The change was made because of the recent success of matinee racing the day after Thanksgiving and because of cooler weather in December . . . Laffit Pincay Jr. has the highest win percentage (22.0) and the highest in-the-money percentage (52.4) of all riders at Oak Tree this meet. When Pincay won on $10,000 claimer Globetrotter for Mike Mitchell, the trainer was overwhelmed. "The guy has unbelievable class," Mitchell said of Pincay. "He wins on a $10,000 claimer, and he’s smiling and petting the horse. Most importantly, he can still ride, and I think (trainer) Bill Spawr’s had the right idea all along. He’s the one guy who’s stuck with Laffit." Pincay has 8,655 wins in pursuit of Bill Shoemaker’s record 8,833 . . . Another one bites the dust: jockey Rene Douglas has left the building. He’s abandoned the Southern California circuit to ride in New York. Business was sparse. He had two victories in 23 mounts.

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