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Hollywood Park Racetrack

Hollywood Park is a thoroughbred racecourse located in Inglewood, California, about 3 miles (5 km) from Los Angeles International Airport and next door to The Forum.

History

The track was opened in 1938 by the Hollywood Turf Club. Its original chairman was Jack Warner of Warner Brothers fame, and its original 600 shareholders included many other Hollywood luminaries. Al Jolson and Raoul Walsh were members of the founding Board of Directors and Mervyn LeRoy served as a director from 1941 until his death in 1986. This Hollywood connection served as the origin of the track's name, as the location of the track itself is actually 10 miles outside of Hollywood.

Hollywood Park closed from 1942 to 1944 due to World War II, being used as a storage facility. In 1949, the original grandstand and clubhouse were destroyed by a fire; the rebuilt facility reopened in 1950. A card club casino was added to the complex in 1994. Churchill Downs Incorporated bought the track for $140 million in 1999.

In July 2005, Churchill Downs sold the track to the Bay Meadows Land Company for $260 million in cash. Under the terms of the deal, the Bay Meadows Land Company, which operates Bay Meadows in San Mateo, will continue thoroughbred racing at the track for at least three more years. According to Bay Meadows officials, the continuation of Hollywood Park as a racing venue after that depends on California allowing the addition of alternative forms of gambling, such as slot machines, to the track. (The Orange County Register, July 7, 2005)

Some of the Hollywood Park land has been sold to real estate developers for them to build a new housing community called the Inglewood Renaissance. Development began in 2005 and continues today.

New grass was installed on the turf course following Hollywood Park's Spring/Summer meet in 2005. However, due to safety concerns, turf racing was not conducted for that year's Autumn meet. As a result, several major stakes races that comprised Hollywood's Autumn Turf Festival were cancelled that year.

Following the conclusion of Hollywood's Spring/Summer meet in 2006, it was announced that a second chute would be built inside the turf course to accommodate sprint races at six furlongs. This follows a similar move by Monmouth Park to build a turf chute for sprint races.