In 1984 it was called the Super Bowl of Thoroughbred Racing, descending in all its glory upon a racetrack in Inglewood, Calif. Now here it is, 38 years later on the same patch of ground, and it's nothing but the plain old Super Bowl.
Ten days before kickoff for Super Bowl LVI, this pilgrim went looking for any trace of the old Hollywood Park at the site of the new Hollywood Park, where the big game will be played. It wasn't easy.
The old Hollywood Park was, of course, one of racing's greatest emporiums, from its maiden season in 1938 to its death throes of late 2013, an era during which the track served as a stage for the greats of the game. The new Hollywood Park is a vast development with a casino, a $5 billion football stadium with two NFL teams, a towering office complex, and a massive shopping mall on the rise alongside a promised array of high density dwellings. There also will be a lake.
With so much concrete poured and so many new elevations, orientation was difficult. The old Hollywood Park has been effectively erased from the landscape. Racetrack customers coming from the west will recall the welcoming vista through the tree-lined corner of Century Boulevard and Prairie Avenue. The view was changed but not completely ruined by the erection of the boxy Cary Grant Pavilion for that first Breeders' Cup on Nov. 10, 1984, leaving the long, lavish grandstand still the star of the show.
The high-rise shopping mall under construction now blocks the view, and most of that southwest corner is a frantic building site. In the distance, the gray, oozing dome of SoFi Stadium looms, like a giant slug exposed to harsh sunlight, covering an otherwise conventional super-sized arena with more bells and whistles than the Vatican. And yes, for those who arched an eyebrow, they built a covered, grass field stadium in Los Angeles, where drought has set up a permanent residence.
Approaching SoFi, it seemed as if every square inch of available space was being used for Super Bowl prep: hospitality marquees, merchandise tents, and security stations. Lots of security stations. There was no evidence that a racetrack and its large stabling area ever existed. Even the ancient oil rigs bobbing for decades in the parking lot on the north side of the track were long gone.
The perimeter of the property allowed for some familiarity. Arbor Vitae Street still dead-ends at an entry point, with Centinela Hospital just down the road. To the east, the immaculate Darby Park was serene as usual, waiting for ball season to crank up on the pristine "dream field" built with support from the L.A. Dodgers Foundation. To the north, on the far side of the LA Forum, Inglewood Park Cemetery lies in untroubled serenity, home to the gravesites of Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, and Betty Grable, for whom a stakes race is named at Del Mar.
To the south, across Century, the magnetic pull of the Hollywood Park project has lured the L.A. Clippers of the NBA from their shared downtown digs with the Lakers. Ground was broken last September on the $1.8 billion Intuit Dome, an 18,000-seat arena.
At the same time, the small businesses along the west side of Prairie—Forum Liquor, Chu's Chinese Garden, the Hollywood Park Motel—seem oblivious to the behemoth stadium in the near distance, although it was a dang shame the Bourbon Street Fish Grill on the corner of Prairie and Kelso Street was boarded up. TV host Steve Harvey was a regular, giving the fried chicken special his coveted Hoodie Award.
I let go a sigh of relief at the sight of "Pincay Drive" and turned right, recalling the day the city fathers christened the road in honor of the great jockey. Standing at the intersection of Pincay Drive and Kareem Court led the eye to the LA Forum, not quite so fabulous any more, having lost both the Kings and the Lakers to their downtown arena and reduced to being a concert venue. Justin Bieber will be there later this month, and Billie Eilish has dates in April.
That's a far cry from a Super Bowl being held across the street, and it's too bad neither Marjorie Everett nor R.D. Hubbard lived to see it happen. Both Hollywood Park chief executives, embattled enemies, harbored visions of an NFL stadium on their property, although not at the cost of the racetrack itself. At various times during their tumultuous tenures, the property was home to a 10-story hotel and a lavish golf center, along with plans for an elaborate theatre complex and the home of the Inglewood police department.
In 2015 the racetrack grandstand was demolished but the Pavilion stood, by then converted to a casino on its way to becoming today's 110,000-square foot, card table Shangri-la. To get inside I flashed my ID and pulled down my mask—as if they were going to turn away a potential sucker—and went hunting for the race book and something with an historical whiff of the track. I found the book—a handsome room with video screens blazing and plenty of seating. It was also deserted. A sign on a nearby door leading to the simulcast betting area said "No Access."
Outside, then, past valet parking and around the corner to a modest entrance over which, in shy lettering, read a sign that proclaimed "Simulcast Wagering." Small doors leading to huge rooms always have a kind of "Alice in Wonderland" effect, and this was no different, although the payoff was admission to a vast space of office neutral tables and chairs and a bank of work stations rimmed by self-service totes and video screens. The décor was hospital corridor off-white interrupted by a collection of large racing action canvases by noted equine artist Fred Stone, rescued leftovers from the ransacking and subsequent fire sale of Hollywood Park artifacts. Apparently, this was as close to a memorial to the old Hollywood Park as it was going to get.
The wound suffered by the loss of Hollywood Park is deep and a long way from healing, if ever. The pressure on Santa Anita Park to be the only first-class track in the major L.A. metro area has had disastrous effects on the sport in terms of racing, stabling, and fan loyalty, not to mention a drag on investment in racehorse ownership.
However, to behold the scope of the new Hollywood Park development is to understand why Thoroughbred racing is armed only with a dull knife in a high calibre gunfight for even a small share of the sports economy. SoFi Stadium, ugly as it is, will be crammed to the gills on Feb. 13 for the Super Bowl, monopolizing both social and traditional media, while the name of Hollywood Park, when summoned, will mean something altogether different from its origin story.
I played and lost the last at Laurel Park at the simulcast site and did not linger. On the way out, an announcement echoed around the room.
"Don't forget, we will be closed next Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That's next week—Friday, Saturday, and Sunday."
I was stumped. Redecoration? Termites? High holiday?
"Super Bowl," said the man at the information desk. "The place is rented out for parties all three days."
