Hollywood Race Track Closes Sunday to Make Way for Development

After 75 years of hosting races that featured some of the sport's biggest names and attracted some of Tinseltown's biggest celebrities, the curtain is falling Sunday on Hollywood Park.

The 238-acre track that developed innovations in the way people bet on horse races will host the final day of its final meet, with the site expected to be razed to make way for a massive retail and residential complex.

Seabiscuit was among the horse racing luminaries who circled the famed track, along with Affirmed, Cigar, Zenyatta, Ferdinand, Seattle Slew and Citation. In the park's heyday, which featured original shareholders such as Walt Disney, Bing Crosby and Samuel Goldwyn, Hollywood stars flocked to the stands, including Elizabeth Taylor, Fred Astaire, Jimmy Stewart, Desi Arnaz and Cary Grant.

"You saw all the famous movie actors make a big deal about horse racing. It made you feel like this is the place to be," 81-year-old jockeys' agent Vince DeGregory told the Los Angeles Daily News. "It was exciting every day."

The track was credited with introducing Sunday races and wagers such as the exacta and the Pick Six, and it set records for daily betting. It also played host to the inaugural Breeders Cup in 1984.

But in recent years, attendance has fallen, and the once glittering grandstand has lost its luster.

According to the Daily News, attendance at the park fell from a record average of 34,516 in 1965 to 3,800. Many have attributed the track's demise to its location, with the more glitzy venues such as Santa Anita and Del Mar becoming more attractive to race fans.

That has left the park struggling financially, and questions about its future lingered for years before plans were finally put in place to clear the site in favor of a more economically viable development.

The park's president, Jack Liebau, said in May the land on which the track sits is simply too valuable to sustain the racing operation. Inglewood Mayor James Butts said at the time the track was generating about $1 million a year in tax revenue.

"The racetrack is part of Inglewood history and Inglewood legend," the mayor told the Daily Breeze in May when the track's closure was announced. "But we're happy for the revenue and the jobs that will flow from the development."