Hollywood Park | Contests and Promotions

November 7 - December 22

Hollywood Park 2013 Fall Autumn Meet

The final fall meeting at Hollywood Park will kick off on Thursday, November 7.

The 27-day meeting runs through December 22 and will play host to a quartet of Grade 1 races.

The Grade 1, $750,000 CashCall Futurity, an annual stop for future Triple Crown contenders, will once again be the most lucrative event on the stakes calendar for the final Autumn meet at Hollywood Park.

Post time will be 12:30 p.m. PT daily except for an 11 a.m. start Thursday, Nov. 28 (Thanksgiving).

Hollywood Park Wagering Highlights

Hollywood Park will again offer a $150,000 guaranteed Pick Six pool every Saturday during the final Autumn meet. The 27-day season begins Thursday, Nov. 7 and continues through Sunday, Dec. 22.

Every day during the 2013 Autumn Meet, there is a guaranteed Pick Four pool on the final four races of the card. Weekdays, the pool is a minimum of $150,000, and on Saturdays and Sundays a minimum of $250,000. The Pick 4 is a 50 cent minimum bet.

The wagering menu will continue to offer the Player’s Pick 5, now a staple on the Southern California circuit after being introduced at the 2011 Spring/Summer meet. The 50 cent minimum wager with a reduced 14% takeout will be offered daily on Races 1-5.

A wager linking the final race of the day at Hollywood Park and the opener at Los Alamitos returns Sunday, Nov. 10.  Called the “405 Double’’, the $2 minimum bet will require a player to pick the winner of Hollywood Park’s last race and the first at Los Alamitos.  The wager will be offered every Sunday throughout Hollywood Park’s 27-day season.  The first race each Sunday at Los Alamitos will feature thoroughbreds going 4 ½ furlongs.

Bet and watch Hollywood Park horse racing online with TwinSpires and watch the race replays for free on TwinSpiresTV!

Hollywood Park Meet Highlights

The 33rd CashCall Futurity -- for two-year-olds at 1 1/16 miles over Cushion Track -- will be part of a stakes tripleheader Dec. 14. The $250,000 Hollywood Turf Cup, a Grade 2 at 1 1/2 miles and the $100,000 Native Diver, a Grade 3 for older horses at 1 1/8 miles over Cushion Track, will also be offered.

"We are very grateful for Mr. Reddam and CashCall's sponsorship through the years and believe the Futurity will again be an important step on the road to the Triple Crown," said Martin Panza, Hollywood Park's vice president-racing and racing secretary. "We're looking forward to an exciting final season."

The Futurity isn't the only Grade 1 for two-year-olds. The $500,000 Hollywood Starlet for fillies will be run for the 33rd time December 7, a card that will also include the Grade 2, $150,000 Bayakoa for older fillies and mares. Both the Starlet and Bayakoa will be run at 1 1/16 miles over Cushion Track.

Sharing the spotlight with the CashCall Futurity and Hollywood Starlet is the Turf Festival, which will be staged for the 20th time in 21 years over Thanksgiving weekend.

The three-day Festival consists of five graded races, including two Grade 1 events -- the $250,000 Matriarch for fillies and mares at one mile and the $250,000 Hollywood Derby for three-year-olds at 1 1/4 miles. Both will be run December 1.

The $250,000 Citation, a Grade 2 at 1 1/16 miles, kicks off the Festival November 29. The November 30 program will feature a pair of Grade 3s for two-year-olds at one mile -- the $100,000 Miesque, for fillies, and the $100,000 Generous.

Returning to the calendar for the first time since 2008 is the $100,000 Hollywood Turf Express. The six-furlong race for older horses will be run December 8.

Two other stakes are also back. The $100,000 Playa Del Rey, a six-furlong event for older fillies and mares which was last run in 2010, returns December 15, while the $100,000 Moccasin Stakes for two-year-old fillies returns November 9 after a one-year absence. The Moccasin is run at seven furlongs.

Additionally, the calendar includes the $200,000 Soviet Problem for two-year-old fillies bred or sired in California and $200,000 King Glorious for California-bred or -sired two-year-olds. Both races are seven furlongs.

The two events, which were run for the first time in 2012, are part of the Golden State Series, a year-long program for horses bred or sired in the state. The Soviet Problem is scheduled for December 21 while the King Glorious is the closing day feature.

Hollywood Park 2013 Autumn Meet

Dates: November 7 - December 22
Hollywood Park horse racing schedule: Racing will be conducted four days a week (Thursday-Sunday) throughout the season with three exceptions. In commemoration of Veterans Day, special holiday racing will be offered Monday, Nov. 11 and there will be no racing Thursday, Nov. 14 and Thursday, Dec. 19.
Autumn Meet Post Times: Post time will be 12:30 p.m. PT daily except for an 11 a.m. start Thursday, Nov. 28 (Thanksgiving).

12:30 pm PT daily except: November 28 (Thanksgiving Day)

Hollywood Park Wagering Information

Trifecta and Superfecta wagering (final race included) on all races that qualify under California statutes

Pick 4 wagering will encompass races 2-5 and final four races daily

Pick 6 wagering will be offered on the last six races on a daily basis

Super High Five wagering will be offered on the final race of the day

Exactas, Trifectas, Pick-3 and Place Pick All are $1.00 minimum wagers

The Pick 4 is a 50¢ minimum wager

The Pick 5 is a 50¢ minimum wager

The Superfecta is a 10¢ minimum wager

The Super High Five is a $1 minimum wager

Win, Place and Show, Daily Double and Pick-6 are $2.00 minimum wagers

Hollywood Park Racetrack Information

Main track (Cushion): 1 1/8-mile oval with a 7 1/2-furlong chute
Length of stretch from last turn to finish line: 991 feet
Width of stretch: 92 feet
Banking on turns: 6%
Composition: Cushion Track

Turf track: 1 mile, 165 foot oval with diagonal chute
Length of stretch from last turn to finish line: 990 feet
Width of stretch: 64 feet
Banking on turns: 6%

About Hollywood Park Racetrack

Given its location, it's not a surprise that Hollywood Park Racetrack is attended by the rich and famous. Located in Inglewood, California, between San Diego and Bakersfield, Hollywood Park has been in existence since June 10, 1938. On that date, Jack Warner from Warner Brothers studio formed the Hollywood Turf Club. Among the shareholders were Bing Crosby, Walt Disney, George Jessel, Wallace Beery, Irene Dunne and Mervyn LeRoy.

From 1942-44, the racetrack was closed because of World War II and was used as a storage facility during the conflict. In 1949, Hollywood Park battled a raging fire that consumed the clubhouse and the grandstand. After one year, the track was repaired and racing began anew in January 1950. One year later, history was made when Citation became the first horse to win a $1-million prize, a feat accomplished in the Hollywood Gold Cup.

On May 10, 1967, Hollywood Park unveiled a Turf course that featured four chutes with a total length of one mile and a width of 150 feet. In 1971, the track made history again when it introduced the exacta wager. This was a massive leap for horse racing as exacta wagers have become one of the most common types of horse bets on any circuit, anywhere. An exacta is when you pick the first two horses of a single race to cross the finish line in the exact order.

As Hollywood Park became more popular it was imperative that renovations be made to meet the expectations of horse bettors. In 1972, Hollywood Park doubled its Turf course, added a restaurant called "The Winner's Circle Dining Room" and made upgrades to the stable area.

During the next 20 years, Hollywood Park broke many records and crossed many barriers in the racing industry. In 1980, it became the first racetrack to average more than $5 million in handle and in 1983 the Hollywood Futurity was not only the first $1-million race for thoroughbred 2-year-olds, it was the richest race staged for thoroughbreds at the time with a purse of $1,049,725.

In 1999, Churchill Downs Inc. purchased Hollywood Park for an estimated $140 million. The deal included the Hollywood Park Casino, which was leased back to Hollywood Park Inc. (now Pinnacle Entertainment Inc.) for 10 years at an annual rate of $3 million, with one 10-year renewal option. On-track handle was up 11.3 percent and on-track attendance up 2.1 percent during the 31-day Autumn Meeting of 2000 - the first under the stewardship of Churchill Downs.

Work began in 2006 to replace the Hollywood Park main track with an engineered Cushion Track racing surface. Cushion Track is a mixture of silica sand, synthetic fibers, elastic fiber, granulated rubber and a wax coating. The resurfacing project was completed on September 13, 2006, just in time for Hollywood Park's fall 2006 meeting. Hollywood Park Racetrack was the first track in California to install a safer artificial surface, but Del Mar followed soon after with the installation of a Polytrack surface. In 2006 the California Horse Racing Board issued a mandate that all major Thoroughbred racetracks in California install synthetic surfaces on their main tracks by 2008.

Other Hollywood Park History

Hollywood Park is one of the nation's premiere thoroughbred race tracks and it's located next to the Forum in Inglewood.

Yet the name is still appropriate, since a surprising number of Hollywood celebrities are involved in the Sport of Kings. It wasn't hard to spot a familiar face at the track, especially if you hung around the winner's circle. And since a recent multimillion dollar facelift which added fountains, gardens, and a European-style walking ring, the historic "track of lakes and flowers" is indeed looking more like a verdant park.

At the racetrack's beginning in 1938, many of the original shareholders at Hollywood Park were stars, including Al Jolson and Raoul Walsh (two of the original directors of the board), Bing Crosby, Walt Disney, Ronald Colman, Wallace Beery, Irene Dunne, Joan Blondell, Sam Goldwyn, Darryl Zanuck, George Jessel, Ralph Bellamy and Mervyn LeRoy (the man who gave us "The Wizard of Oz," and who served as the director of Hollywood Park from 1941 until his death in 1986).

Many of the stars owned and raced their own stable of horses. 

Telly Savalas, for instance, owned the renowned "Telly's Pop." (For a big race, Savalas once made a dramatic entrance at the track via a helicopter.) Bing Crosby not only owned race horses, but he was a shareholder in Hollywood Park and built the Del Mar race track near San Diego.

Fred Astaire loved the races, and actually married a female jockey in his latter years. Louis B. Mayer became so obsessed with his stable of ponies that he was given an ultimatum by M-G-M: produce horses or produce pictures. Cary Grant was such a regular at Hollywood Park that after he died, they named their new clubhouse the Cary Grant Pavilion. Al Jolson was an avid owner of racehorses, as was Michael Landon and even rapper MC Hammer.

Other owners of racehorses include actor Kevin Costner, quizmaster Alex Trebek ("Jeopardy!"), country singer George Strait, comic Tim Conway, and Nash Bridges' Don Johnson (whose horse won $300,000 in one race.) Other celebs are friends of owners; some are simply big racing fans.

The racing program and the Daily Racing Form both list the owners of each horse, so you could sometimes anticipate the arrival of a particular celebrity in the winners circle. Other celebrities were actually on the Board of Directors at the park, such as actor John Forsythe, producer Howard Koch, and Mervyn LeRoy (who directed "Gypsy," "Little Caesar," and "The Bad Seed").

But even without the Racing Form, spotting a famous face in the Winners Circle at Hollywood Park wasn't hard. Over the years Cary Grant, Richard Dreyfuss, Michael Landon, Merv Griffin, Annette Funicello, Jack Benny's wife, Mary Livingston, General Omar Bradley, John Forsythe, baseball manager Jim Fregosi, and Burt Reynolds & Loni Anderson (when they were still together) where known to be seen at the races.

Past Hollywood Park Meets

Hollywood Park Racetrack 2012 Spring/Summer Meet