History of the Sport
In Florida and California

HALLANDALE, Fla. (Jan. 28, 2005) -- In the eyes of the northeastern-based racing establishment, the California and Florida that existed in the early 20th century represented the far side of the frontier.

“Recognized” race meets were regularly held in colonial America and many of the racetracks established in the latter half of the 19th century are still doing business.

Along the Atlantic seaboard states, the upstate New York racecourse in Saratoga was built while guns in Gettysburg still smoldered in 1863, merely a month after that battle.

Baltimore’s Pimlico racecourse opened in 1870. Belmont Park on Long Island will be celebrating its 100th year of operation this spring.

In the Midwest, the Fair Grounds in New Orleans was opened in 1872 and, in Louisville, Churchill Downs came into existence in 1875.

The first major racetrack in Florida was now-dormant Hialeah, a relative newcomer that opened in 1931. It ruled the peninsular roost until it was forced to share top billing with Gulfstream Park, which opened in 1939 and, under the leadership of James Donn Sr., re-opened in 1944 after a period of dormancy during the war years.

In little time it became clear that Gulfstream would soon challenge Hialeah and, after a decades-long struggle, finally wrested supremacy from its rival.

Gulfstream was sold three times in the ‘90s. The final sale of the century, in 1999, made it, along with Santa Anita, part of the family of Magna Entertainment Corp. racetracks.

There are three active racetracks in Florida: Gulfstream, Calder Race Course in nearby North Miami, and Tampa Bay Downs.

Out west, even to this day, “Santa Anita” remains the name most of those east of the Mississippi associate with Los Angeles-area racing. It opened in 1934 and was an immediate hit, due in large part to the creation of the Santa Anita Handicap, the nation’s first race worth $100,000. In short order it picked up the nicknames “The Big Cap” and “The Hundred Grander” and some of the best horses in the east, many of whom would become Hall of Famers, went west for a crack at the big money.

Now California has five major racetracks -- Santa Anita and Hollywood Park in the Los Angeles area; Golden Gate Fields and Bay Meadows near San Francisco, and Del Mar near San Diego – along with fair meets held at Fairplex in L.A. and numerous venues in northern California.

… IN THE SUNSHINE STATE
The creation of Hialeah under Joseph Widener was the first big push for what has become a booming thoroughbred business in Florida, but the distinction of operating the first racetrack in South Florida belongs to the Miami Jockey Club, which opened a one-mile oval in 1925. Joseph Smoot oversaw the 51-day operation until a group of investors, headed by Widener, bought him out.

The next year saw the opening of more tracks in Florida, among them Seminola, Pompano and Tampa Downs on the state’s west coast. The latter hosted the first Florida Derby in 1926.

Meanwhile, Widener tidied up his new property, renamed it after its host city and expanded the track from a mile to a mile and an eighth, just as Gulfstream, under the ownership of Frank Stronach’s Magna Entertainment Corp., has done over the last few months.

After a few years inactivity, the Florida Derby resurfaced at Widener’s racetrack and had its first running there in 1929. In 1931 the track was opened under the name of “Hialeah Park.” When the state passed a pari-mutuel law later that year, Widener put $2 million into the property and made it a showcase that lasted for more than 50 years before the ravages of time took its toll. And in 1937, what had been known as the Florida Derby was renamed the Flamingo Stakes.

The war years brought racetrack closings: Tropical Park, which was opened in 1931, was closed midmeet in 1943 and also shuttered was Gulfstream and Hialeah, which were used by the military.

All three reopened in 1944.

Gulfstream, which opened Feb. 1, 1939, with a four-day meeting, sprung back to life when James Donn Sr. purchased it for $100,000, assumed the debt of the previous owners and swung wide the gates for a 20-day stand.

One of Gulfstream’s first nationally significant races came in 1948 when the mare Rampart upset reigning Horse of the Year and future Hall of Famer Armed. The next year, Coaltown, Armed’s stablemate and another Hall of Famer, would tie a world record in winning the Gulfstream Park Handicap, running a mile and a quarter in 1:59 4/5 under 128 pounds.

The Florida Derby would begin its third life, this time at Gulfstream, in 1952. Its resurrection, along with the continuation of the Gulfstream Park Handicap and three renewals of the Breeders’ Cup, “Racing’s Championship Day,” provided further assurance that many of the greatest racehorses of all time would compete in Hallandale.

Nashua, Bold Ruler, Kelso, Northern Dancer, Forego, Spectacular Bid, Sunday Silence, Easy Goer, Go for Wand, A.P. Indy, Lure, Cigar and Daylami -- along with such crack Florida-breds Needles, Carry Back, Holy Bull and Skip Away -- are a few of the immortals who have competed at Gulfstream.

Real estate businessman Stephen Calder believed racing could flourish in the off season and in 1965 the Legislature passed a bill authorizing racing in the summer months, putting Calder’s plan into motion. He and William McKnight constructed an all-weather track inside the main track at Tropical, using it once a day beginning in 1966. In 1970 Calder was given his own permit, although he ran his meet at Tropical because construction of his own track had not yet been finished.

Its official opening came the next year and it has grown to become a nursery for the state’s budding juvenile stars. It also retains Tropical Park’s late-autumn/early-winter dates.

The state’s Ocala-based breeding industry came under the national spotlight in the mid ‘50s, especially in 1956, due to the exploits of Needles, the Kentucky Derby/Belmont Stakes winner and champion of his generation.

Often ill as a yearling, he was often injected with medication, hence his name. Owned by Jack Dudley and Bonnie Heath, and trained by World War I pilot Hugh Fontaine, he nearly won the Triple Crown but finished second in the middle leg, the Preakness.

Like Needles, Carry Back was a champion of his generation who was one race short of a Triple Crown, losing the final leg, the Belmont, in 1961. The long-tailed colt may have been even more popular than his predecessor, although he was frequently at combat with the nationally beloved Kelso.

The creation of the Sunshine Millions assures that Florida’s best horses will, at least on one day, run in their native state. Had it been created years earlier, perhaps Dr. Fager and Affirmed, two of the best of all-time, would have seen action at Gulfstream.

Dr. Fager, who was owned by McKnight’s Tartan Stables, set a world record for a mile, won a now-Grade 1 race under 139 pounds, earned a million dollars and became a top sire who left his fans, many of whom never saw him run in person, convinced he was the greatest thoroughbred of all time. He was born in Florida and died in Florida but never competed there. He did, however, travel cross-country to win the Californian at Hollywood Park under 130 pounds in 1968.

Owned by the Harbor View Farm of Louis Wolfson and Patrice Jacobs, Affirmed played Muhammad Ali to Alydar’s Joe Frazier. Affirmed won six of eight, and in 1978 he became the 11th winner of the Triple Crown. Winner also of the Santa Anita Handicap (running a mile and a quarter in 1:58 3/5 under 128 pounds), Affirmed was a champion each of the three years he competed and he retired the world’s richest horse with earnings of nearly $2.4 million.

A stakes winner in California at 2, he prepped for his Triple Crown campaign there at 3 and at 4 dominated the major events before leaving in the summer for an eastern campaign.
Californians took the Florida-bred as one of their own, and he remains the last winner of the Triple Crown.

… IN THE GOLDEN STATE
As the leading representative of the West, the state of California has traditionally borne the region’s burden of the younger brother trying to prove his competitive worth to an older sibling.

And is there any more provincial sport than horse racing?

More than 350 years earlier the Spanish had conquered the land that would be known as California and, under royal decree, they had set sail from Europe with stallions and mares in tow. Naturally, the breeding business came about shortly thereafter.

According to William Robertson in his “History of Thoroughbred Racing in America,” 1851 was a big year with the opening of three racetracks, two in San Francisco and one in Sacramento.

Long before the state-bred Swaps and the adopted sons Sunday Silence and Majestic Prince, and even before Seabiscuit represented the west in jousts with the east, there was Thad Stevens, a 19th century Californian who regularly whipped his cross-country rivals.

Heat racing was favored in those days when horses were horses and men were men. Heats were typically at least two miles long, and the winner of the “race” was actually the winner in a best of three, or best of five, all contested in one day.

In 1873 the Pacific Jockey Club offered a pot of gold worth $20,000 to the winner of a four-mile heat at Ocean View Park outside San Francisco. The race was guaranteed to attract 8-year-old Thad Stevens, the first great state-bred. Put $20Gs is still a big number and in the 1870s it was big enough to draw the 3-year-old Joe Daniels, the eastern champion who had taken the Belmont, Travers and other important races of the day.

Thad Stevens had a habit of throwing a clinker in the first leg and winning the late heats. That was the pattern he followed in a prep for the $20 Grander in Oakland, losing the first heat to Joe Daniels, then winning the next two.

Newspaper reports estimated 10,000 to 15,000 showed up for the big event, the winner being the first horse who could win two of the four-mile heats. Joe Daniels won the first heat and True Blue, a 4-year-old fellow easterner, took the second. Joe Daniels needed to win the third, and he did. True Blue was distanced in the heat, beaten so badly he was not allowed to start in the deciding leg, thereby leaving it between Joe Daniels and Thad Stevens.

The Californian was an easy winner.

The purse was boosted to $25,000 the next year and an eastern filly named Katy Pease crossed the continent to challenge Thad Stevens. She took her heats in front-running style as Thad Stevens seemed an indifferent competitor. Robertson reports that eventually Thad Stevens did catch up to Katy Pease, the result being a chestnut filly.

Elias Jackson Baldwin was a major figure in 19th century California. The story goes that he was running a livery stable in the 1870s and accepted as payment of a debt a share in the Bonanza Firm, a mining project in Nevada. The mine struck in 1873, the same year Thad Stevens beat Joe Daniels, making “Lucky” Baldwin a multimillionaire. Flushed with cash, he established a stud farm near Los Angeles, named it Rancho Santa Anita, and in time cut out enough land to build a racecourse.

Gambling became a hot issue with politicians near the end of the first decade of the 20th century and racing in California was marginalized. Its revitalization came with the opening of Tanforan near San Francisco in 1928. Business boomed at the Bay-area track, which led Anita Baldwin, Lucky’s daughter for whom he named his farm and racetrack, to make plans toward establishing a race meet on the land she inherited from her father.

Those plans fell through, but her hopes for racing came to pass after she sold the property to a group led by local businessman Leigh Battson and dentist Charles Strub.

The Santa Anita that opened before 25,000 people Christmas Day, 1934, was founded on that same parcel of land, and scheduling the country’s first six-figure race later that meet was a sure way to get attention. The first renewal of the Santa Anita Handicap attracted the 7-year-old future Hall of Famers Equipoise and Twenty Grand but they were past their prime and the big prize fell to an ex-steeplechaser named Azucar.

Quickly the race began compiling a list of legendary performers who used Lucky Baldwin’s old yard to stage some of the sport’s most spectacular campaigns. Eastern stars of the ‘30s such as those mentioned above as well as Preakness winner Mate, Kentucky Derby winner Cavalcade and the top handicap horse Discovery began making the trip west.

His purchase by northern California car dealer Charles Howard went a long way in the recovery of Seabiscuit from an incredibly brutal campaign of 35 starts -- his first five coming at Hialeah -- as a 2-year-old.

The colt’s development became the stuff of legends and movies. His victory against War Admiral at Pimlico in 1938 was the ultimate West/East showdown and the highlight of a career capped by his redemptive victory in the Santa Anita Handicap, which came after twice losing the big race by a nose.

Howard would have another horse who made a habit of whipping a Triple Crown winner -- his Noor would beat Citation in major stakes four times in 1950 – but in between, as was the case in the east, the war years had a great effect on western racing and tracks were used for anything from Victory gardens to defense installations.

One was Kentucky-bred, the other Irish-bred, but Howard’s horses were Californians to most of the country.

The state’s breeders could claim a Kentucky Derby with Morvich’s success in 1922, but a very special horse came along in 1955.

So serene that his trainer slept in his stall, Swaps beat the great easterner Nashua in that year’s Derby but fell short of emulating Seabiscuit, losing a one-on-one match against his archrival in Chicago.

He then began a collection of world records, one of which came in the Broward Handicap at Gulfstream Park in 1956.

Swaps was owned by Rex Ellsworth and trained by Mesh Tenney, and those two returned to Gulfstream in 1963 to take the Florida Derby with Candy Spots. His victory came a year after California breeders won their third Kentucky Derby, thanks to the efforts of Decidedly.

Through the years a succession of true blue Californians have done their handlers and state proud.

The list is long, and at the forefront are three geldings: The hugely popular Native Diver won three successive runnings of the Hollywood Gold Cup in the ‘60s; Ancient Title won that race and came east to take the Whitney at Saratoga in the ‘70s, and in the early ‘90s
Best Pal made friends of fans throughout the country with victories that included the Santa Anita Handicap, Pacific Classic, Hollywood Gold Cup and Cal Cup classic.

The best Cal.-bred of recent years has been Tiznow, the only horse to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic twice.

He is also the only California-bred Breeders’ Cup winner. Florida has 18. The Sunshine State also leads in terms of Kentucky Derby winners, 6-3; Florida Derby winners, 15-3; national champions, 41-8, and Sunshine Millions winners, 13-3.

California breeders can take heart in the fact that they beat their rivals to the winner’s circle in both Derbys, thanks to Correlation’s victory at Gulfstream in 1954 and Morvich’s 1922 victory at Churchill Downs.

With events such as the Cal Cup and Sunshine Millions programs, it’s assured that many of the nation’s top horses will continue to grace the sport courtesy of the breeders from California and Florida.
-- Mike Mullaney