October 29 - Now that the highly anticipated Breeders' Cup World Championships have come and gone, it's time for the North American horseracing calendar to continue and that includes the start of an eight-week autumn race meet today at Hollywood Park in California.

After the huge crowds that flocked to Santa Anita Racecourse for the Breeders' Cup - and all the money they wagered over the course of the auspicious two-day meeting - Hollywood Park officials will certainly be hoping that they have something left over for the autumn race meeting.

Said Hollywood racing secretary Martin Panza, 'We've never opened on the Wednesday after the Breeders' Cup, so it's hard to gauge how much interest the meeting will attract. However, the strength of the meet will obviously be in the Turf Festival as well as the 2-year-old races.'

Top draw cards are set to include the $65,000 Dance in the Mood Stakes as well as the $500,000 Matriarch Guaranteed (Gr 1) for three-year-old fillies and mares and older, and the lucrative $750,000 CashCall Futurity.

While the autumn meet at Hollywood Park may attract the punters, the horsemen will feel a slight pinch as many of the purses have been reduced as a result of current downward economic swing and resulting 'belt tightening'. Said Panza, 'This could be the last fall meet. I don't think it will be, but it could be.'

Panza's comments came with the news that Hollywood Park has not committed to racing beyond the 2009 spring meet, and that the land that the racecourse is built on will eventually be developed by real estate sharks. That said, the country's slow economy is currently no friend of property development.

This means that Bay Meadows Land Co - which owns Hollywood Park - could well end up staying in the horseracing business longer than they expect. Last fall the risk of possible overpayments resulted in Hollywood Park cutting its race purses by up to seven percent.

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2012/04/02 06:43:41 AM