Hollywood Park

LOS ANGELES -- The Western Standardbred Association has filed suit against Hollywood Park, seeking $81 million in damages for the thoroughbred track's alleged attempt to kill harness racing in Southern California.The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, said Hollywood Park Operating Company and Hollywood Park Realty "were engaged in a wrongful plan and program to curtail the competitive opportunities for harness racing in Southern California and eliminate harness racing in Southern California."

Horse racing -- Jerry Hollendorfer became just the fourth trainer to win 5,000 races after his only two starters won at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, Calif. Hollendorfer, who was in Northern California at Golden Gate Fields where his lone starter failed to win, matched the milestone with a win by Political High in the final race of the Hollywood Park season late Saturday. He also won the third race with Gold Trim. The others to reach the plateau are Dale Baird with 9,445 wins, Jack Van Berg with 6,378 and King Leatherbury with 6,227.

Unless he can pull together a partnership with local investors by early next week, Laurel/Pimlico operator Joe De Francis is expected to agree to a takeover of the tracks by Hollywood Park, sources said.De Francis said yesterday that he and Hollywood Park chairman R. D. Hubbard are working out details of a final agreement that would sell 80 percent equity in Laurel/Pimlico for $15 million. Hollywood Park's sole partner in Laurel/Pimlico would be De Francis, who would own the other 20 percent equity and stay on as the tracks' president and chief executive officer.

Horse racing Brother Derek, who finished fourth with odds of 56-1 in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, established himself as a contender for next year's Triple Crown with a one-length victory over Your Tent Or Mine in yesterday's $407,250 Hollywood Futurity at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, Calif. The son of Benchmark ran 1 1/16 miles in 1 minute, 42.02 seconds to become the fifth California-bred winner of the Grade I Futurity. He established himself as a horse to watch leading to the 2006 Kentucky Derby, a race six Futurity champs have won, including Giacomo in 2005.

LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles Raiders owner Al Davis is negotiating with Hollywood Park to build a privately financed 65,000-seat stadium with at least 150 luxury boxes for the 1997 football season, sources close to the negotiations said.UCLA administrators have been involved in the discussions and would consider leaving the Rose Bowl to play football in the new stadium, officials said.Tentative plans are to spend between $175 million and $200 million to build a football stadium at the 345-acre racetrack complex, which is in Inglewood.

LOS ANGELES -- Santa Anita Park, as recently as early 1990, entered into secret discussions with a board member of Hollywood Park that would have led to the elimination of racing at the Inglewood, Calif., track and the transfer of most of those dates to Santa Anita.Santa Anita went so far as to commission a major study that included a map of Hollywood Park property to be sold and the redistribution of racing dates.Information about the plan was obtained by the Times through court documents and depositions filed in conjunction with the Hollywood Park takeover attempt by R.D. Hubbard, owner of racetracks in New Mexico and Kansas.

Hollywood Park left the door open yesterday that it could be involved in future negotiations to buy Laurel and Pimlico race courses.But Joe De Francis, who will own 100 percent interest in the tracks together with Martin Jacobs and Karin Van Dyke, has shut "The deal is off. It's dead," De Francis said yesterday. "I'm pleased with the relationship that we have with Hollywood. I've worked hard with Dee Hubbard [Hollywood's chairman] and I have high regard for him. I want to maintain a warm relationship with Hollywood.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. -- It appeared jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. had used up his best chance yesterday to become horse racing's all-time winningest rider when he finished fourth on 8-5 favorite Flying Journey in the third race at Hollywood Park. His remaining three mounts were modest long shots, creating the likelihood that race fans would have to wait at least one more day to see him break Bill Shoemaker's long-standing record of 8,833 victories. But Pincay has been beating the odds since he made his racing debut in his native Panama way back in 1964.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. -- Hoping to cure the nation's champion jockey of a bad "habit," the Hollywood Park stewards have handed Kent Desormeaux a five-day suspension for standing up in the irons as Quickasyouplease finished in a dead heat for third in a race Thursday.The suspension begins Wednesday. Desormeaux was aboard three winners yesterday at Hollywood Park, including Future Storm in the $113,900 Will Rogers Handicap.It's the third time Desormeaux has been punished for violating California Horse Racing Board rule 1692, which requires that jockeys ride their mounts out until the finish line is passed.

Horse racing -- Jerry Hollendorfer became just the fourth trainer to win 5,000 races after his only two starters won at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, Calif. Hollendorfer, who was in Northern California at Golden Gate Fields where his lone starter failed to win, matched the milestone with a win by Political High in the final race of the Hollywood Park season late Saturday. He also won the third race with Gold Trim. The others to reach the plateau are Dale Baird with 9,445 wins, Jack Van Berg with 6,378 and King Leatherbury with 6,227.

Races from Churchill Downs, Calder Race Course and Hollywood Park will be shown at mid-Atlantic racetracks today after the simulcast dispute between MidAtlantic Cooperative and Churchill Downs Simulcast Network was resolved last night. MidAtlantic Cooperative, a group of 17 tracks that includes Pimlico and Laurel Park, had rejected Churchill Downs' proposal for higher fees and pulled the plug on simulcast races from Churchill and its five sister tracks. The one-year deal ensures that mid-Atlantic tracks and betting outlets will receive races from Churchill Downs (including next Saturday's Kentucky Derby)

Toccet, one of the top two contenders for the Triple Crown series, has been sidelined with ankle problems and may miss the Kentucky Derby. Daniel Borislow, who owns the Laurel-based colt, said last night that Toccet has "remodeling of the ankle" in three ankles. He said that was "kind of like a bad bruise or a minor shin splint." Toccet, a finalist for the Eclipse Award as top 2-year-old, was supposed to be flown Monday from his Laurel Park stall to South Florida, where he was to have raced Feb. 15 in the Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park.

HOLLYWOOD - Three years ago, one of the world's most famous cemeteries literally was resting in pieces. Tombstones were toppled or broken. Mausoleums were flooded, their roofs falling in. The grounds were unkempt, and sections were so crowded, some gravesites were nearly inaccessible. Worse, its problems weren't simply cosmetic. Hollywood Memorial Park's manager was embezzling millions from endowment funds. He even installed a wet bar in his office - a shoddy way to treat so storied a landscape, a cemetery where some of the most famous figures of the 20th century are buried.

The saga continues of Speak Compelling and her mystery baby. The 3-year-old mother has won two of 11 races since shocking her handlers by delivering a filly foal Jan. 30 in her stall at Philadelphia Park. No one knew Speak Compelling, who had raced 11 days earlier, was pregnant. A Maryland-bred daughter of Compelling Sound and Speak Swahili, Speak Compelling is resting at her trainer's farm in Pennsylvania after those 11 races the past five months. Her 8-month-old daughter romps merrily at another Pennsylvania farm as Lynda Gallagher continues her hunt for the sire.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. -- It appeared jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. had used up his best chance yesterday to become horse racing's all-time winningest rider when he finished fourth on 8-5 favorite Flying Journey in the third race at Hollywood Park. His remaining three mounts were modest long shots, creating the likelihood that race fans would have to wait at least one more day to see him break Bill Shoemaker's long-standing record of 8,833 victories. But Pincay has been beating the odds since he made his racing debut in his native Panama way back in 1964.

Horse-racing associations are offering rewards for information leading to arrests and convictions in recent cases of "sponging" in Kentucky -- stuffing sponges into the nostrils of racehorses.The Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau is investigating at least five cases in which sponges were inserted into the nasal passages of horses that raced this spring at Churchill Downs. The sponges compromise a horse's ability to run by diminishing its ability to breathe. They could be used to fix a race.

Races from Churchill Downs, Calder Race Course and Hollywood Park will be shown at mid-Atlantic racetracks today after the simulcast dispute between MidAtlantic Cooperative and Churchill Downs Simulcast Network was resolved last night. MidAtlantic Cooperative, a group of 17 tracks that includes Pimlico and Laurel Park, had rejected Churchill Downs' proposal for higher fees and pulled the plug on simulcast races from Churchill and its five sister tracks. The one-year deal ensures that mid-Atlantic tracks and betting outlets will receive races from Churchill Downs (including next Saturday's Kentucky Derby)

CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. -- The Charles Town Races will present a simulcast of today's $100,000-added Los Angeles Handicap, a six-furlong sprint for 3-year-olds and up, live from Hollywood Park.The Los Angeles Handicap will be run as Charles Town's fourth race with post time for the first of 12 races at 7 p.m.

Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, whose fight to move his team to Los Angeles 16 years ago cleared the way for all subsequent franchise moves, is suing the NFL again, saying the league -- with help from Baltimore team owner Art Modell -- forced him out of Southern California.The suit seeks more than $200 million and alleges a murky conspiracy of league officials and team owners to queer the Raiders' negotiations to get a new stadium built near Los Angeles in conjunction with the Hollywood Park racetrack.