I visited Hialeah Park for the first time nearly 30 years ago, on Dec. 26, 1987. Though I'd been cautioned that the grande dame of South Florida racing was not what she once was – that the war track owner John Brunetti had lost to Gulfstream Park over the prime winter dates had taken its toll – I was nevertheless stunned by Hialeah Park's beauty and elegance.
That day's main event was the Grade 1 Widener Handicap, a race won over the years by the likes of War Admiral, Armed, Nashua, True North, Forego, Private Account and, more recently, Turkoman. The Widener traditionally had been one of the highlights of the winter meeting, especially when Hialeah Park occupied the mid-winter dates from January through March.
Personal Flag won that 1987 renewal for Ogden Phipps and an up-and-coming trainer named Shug McGaughey. For good measure, a half-hour later, McGaughey saddled another Phipps homebred, Seeking the Gold, a 2-year-old son of Mr. Prospector who would jump-start a highly successful racing career with a romping maiden victory.
There was so much history at Hialeah, things I'd seen on television, newsreels, movies like “The Champ” and in magazines and newspaper articles. There were the infield flamingos, who took flight each afternoon, the magnificent paddock, the nearby statue of Citation, the sweeping stairways and the wicker chair box seats. Even on this day-after-Christmas program, it seemed like a “Who's Who” of racing was in attendance.
Statue of Citation at Hialeah Park (2014 photo)
Hialeah Park went downhill quickly after that. Within a couple of years, squeezed even more on dates, Brunetti raced head-to-head with Calder Race Course – another track in the Miami area – and got clobbered. It went dark in 1990-'91, and while Hialeah would reopen a year later, it never really recovered, running its last Thoroughbred meet in 2001. The state then took away Brunetti's permit to run a race meeting.
The legislature gave Brunetti and Hialeah Park new life in 2009, authorizing a Quarter Horse meeting and – after it hosted two consecutive years of live racing – a casino. It wasn't what the track's owner wanted; he's a Thoroughbred owner and breeder who wanted to bring Thoroughbreds back to Hialeah Park. But Quarter Horse racing allowed him to build and operate a profitable casino while putting money into maintaining and partially restoring the grand but aging facility.
That's how Hialeah Park has been used over the last eight years.
Until now.
Thanks to permit approvals by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation's Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering, Brunetti no longer has to operate legitimate Quarter Horse racing, the kind that had been sanctioned since 2009 by the American Quarter Horse Association. He can join farcical racetracks like Gretna in the Florida panhandle, Hamilton Downs near the Georgia state line and Oxford Downs south of Ocala, and put on two-horse matches over 110 yards that the AQHA no longer sanctions. It's the kind of charade that's allowed the aforementioned businesses to open card rooms and simulcasting parlors. Practically no one attends these races and fewer people actually bet on them. But that doesn't matter.
Over 20 “race days,” Wednesdays through Sundays from May 31 to June 25, Hialeah Park is staging two cards of eight races each. There are two horses per race – some of whom are as old as 18 – plus three also-eligibles. They break from a makeshift starting gate without doors and run for a sixteenth of a mile.
Three stewards are positioned in the grandstand – along with a cameraman filming these ridiculous contests – and that's about it. After one horse crosses the finish in front, a winner's circle photo is taken, and then the bad joke is repeated seven more times to technically complete a “day of racing.”
I don't blame track owner Brunetti for this sad and pathetic mockery of our sport. He is only doing what the state government enablers in Tallahassee allow to be passed off as horse racing.
That's my view from the eighth pole.
The post View From The Eighth Pole: Blame State, Not Brunetti, For Mockery Of The Sport At Hialeah appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.