GOLDEN GLIMPSES #33 GOLDEN GLIMPSES #33 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA RACING: WHITHER THOU GOEST?
Eddie Gregson knows what's good for the game.
Like most horsemen, the long-time proponent of racing in its purist sense does not like what he sees these days -- weekday on-track crowds of less than 6,000 and Saturday crowds of just over 10,000, rattling around like so many pinballs in the cavernous real estate at Hollywood Park and Santa Anita.
Gregson, who will be 58 on Aug. 7, began training in 1969 and saddled Gato Del Sol to win the 1982 Kentucky Derby at 21-1. He is one of an overwhelming number of trainers who has sounded the alarm for less racing.
"The change in racing occurred with simulcasting, of course, which eroded the on-track attendance to the point where tracks will have to downsize dramatically," said Gregson, who once had an 18-month stint as an actor while under contract to Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox. He appeared in the film "The Naked and the Dead."
"The tracks are just lonely, drafty facilities now. They will have to be very sensitive as to who's committed to coming to the races and cater exactly to the needs of those people.
"Hopefully, we'll see fewer cheap races in the future. I'm not one to think the short fields are what's hurting the handle or the interest. I think there's so much filler (consisting) of cheap racing just to achieve nine and 10-race cards. We need fewer maiden claiming races and fewer cheap races, whether there are large fields or not.
"That's what's eroding the quality of the product . . . we definitely have to lessen the amount of racing and downsize the (racing) plants. Grandstands have to be edited down to just what the tracks can expect on a normal weekend.
"If you wind up turning people away, so be it. All the owners I talk to complain that the crowds aren't there anymore, and what crowds we have aren't cheering. There's no excitement, and that's a tragedy. You have to bring excitement back and make racing an event. It's no longer an event. It's just a theater for gambling, and that's tragic. There's just too much of it. I mean, imagine if baseball were played year-round.
"People must see live racing to appreciate it. The race horse is the most beautiful creature that man and God ever created. There's nothing like the race horse. They shouldn't ruin that. There really should be no racing of consequence after the Breeders' Cup. The month of December should be empty."
Are any serious measures being taken by the horsemen for less racing?
"That's the problem. When you talk about the horsemen today, they're tragically divided between the TOC (Thoroughbred Owners of California) and the Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (HBPA, of which Gregson is a member of the Board of Directors). The trainers have been excluded from the TOC, so we don't have that meeting of the minds anymore, so that we really know what is best for us.
"We desperately need some sort of meeting of the minds to decide what's best for us and what is best for the game. I think the tracks are so dependent upon being in the good graces of the politicians that they're kind of letting the politicians push them around a bit too much."
Twenty years from now, there may be nothing left to push.
The Running Horse (https://www.isd1.com/alauck)
