THOROUGHBRED RACING : Hubbard Group on the Outside Looking In for a Track in Texas

DEL MAR —  The favorites were supposed to be a group that includes Hollywood Park’s R.D. Hubbard and a rival bunch of well-heeled Texans. But when an application examiner made a recommendation this week to the Texas Racing Commission, he bypassed both of those applicants and voted for Trinity Meadows Raceway to get the Class I racing license for the Dallas-Ft. Worth area.

It was as big an upset as Missionary Ridge, the longest shot on the board, winning Del Mar’s Pacific Classic.

“What is the reaction here?” said David Freeman, executive secretary of the Texas Racing Commission, repeating a question. “In language somebody from California would understand, it was like having an earthquake and civil unrest on the same day.”

Judge Dudley McCalla’s recommendation is non-binding, but the five-member racing commission won’t be able to ignore Trinity Meadows when it meets to award the license in October. It’s not over, however.

“If anything, the three groups on the outside have grown new teeth,” Freeman said.

Santa Anita, which was financially burned the last time it dabbled in racing expansion, at moribund Canterbury Downs in Minnesota, is an investor in another group that McCalla bypassed in making his licensing recommendation.

To borrow buzz words of the time, the campaigns to obtain this racing license have not been without the sleaze factor.

Hubbard’s opponents made a big to-do of his long friendship with Jeremy Jacobs, the chairman of a concession company that has a shadowy history but has never been convicted of a felony.

Jacobs has become a prominent investor in Hollywood Park, whose shareholders have a 24% stake in the Texas racing bid. Hubbard has a 24% interest, and reportedly $500,000 has been spent by the Californians in trying to gain the license.

The only applicant with a facility already in place, Trinity Meadows is a Class II track with county-fair trappings 15 miles west of Ft. Worth. Racing thoroughbreds and quarter horses, Trinity opened last year to average crowds of 6,500, who bet about $815,000 a day. Its location is not considered prime, and many of its promises to improve the facility have been hollow.

“No matter who gets the license, Texans will not accept a second-class facility or second-class racing,” said Clarence Scharbauer, a $500,000 investor in the Texas group.

Scharbauer and his family raced Alysheba, who was voted horse of the year in 1988.

“When Dallas gets Grade I racing, it will expect big-league treatment,” Scharbauer said.

Hollywood Park’s commitment to a track in Texas would be $10 million, and Hubbard has said he would spend another $10 million of his own money.

The Texas venture has been opposed by some Hollywood Park shareholders, among them former chairman Marje Everett, whom Hubbard unseated in a proxy fight that ended in February of 1991. These shareholders say that with a debt of more than $60 million, Hollywood Park can ill afford risking more money on a sport that is in the doldrums nationally.

Although Paseana ran poorly, beating only one horse in last Sunday’s $1-million Pacific Classic at Del Mar, her jockey, Chris McCarron, says that the 5-year-old mare’s horse-of-the-year chances have not evaporated.

Undefeated in six starts this season before Sunday’s effort, Paseana was trying to beat males in the Classic, traditionally a prerequisite for females in the running for horse of the year.

“I still think she’s accomplished more with her six straight wins than any other horse this year,” McCarron said.

McCarron recalled Lady’s Secret, who in 1986 became the last female to win horse of the year. One of Lady’s Secret’s victories was over a mediocre group of males in the Whitney Handicap at Saratoga.

“Lady’s Secret wasn’t the best horse that year,” McCarron said. “There were a number of male horses that year who would have beaten her. Two that I can think of right away were Turkoman and Precisionist. She wouldn’t have outrun them.

“But she still accomplished more than anybody else did (10 victories, three seconds, two thirds and $1.8 million in purses in 15 starts), and that’s why she won the title. Well, I think this mare has a record a lot like Lady’s Secret. I still think she’s got a chance to win everything.”

Stumbling out of the gate and tossing his jockey, Edgar Prado, in the Pacific Classic, Jolie’s Halo might have had the worst start in a big race since O’Hara dumped Milo Valenzuela when his stall door opened in the 1967 Hollywood Gold Cup.

O’Hara was 8-1, but like Jolie’s Halo he went off the third betting choice, was getting a 10-pound break in the weights from the winner, Native Diver, and had finished second to Native Diver in the Gold Cup the year before.

Native Diver, an 8-year-old in 1967, also won the Gold Cup in 1965. O’Hara might have contributed to Native Diver’s third consecutive victory in the stake. Pretense, the 3-10 favorite, and his jockey, Johnny Sellers, were shadowed all the way around the course by O’Hara after he had dumped Valenzuela, whose nephew, Pat, is now a top jockey. Pretense was carrying 131 pounds and Sellers, besides keeping track of Native Diver ahead of them, had to worry about being impeded by the loose-running O’Hara.

O’Hara was the first horse across the finish line. Then came Native Diver, five lengths ahead of Pretense.

Hurricane damage to Gulfstream Park was minor and will not affect the Florida track’s ability to conduct the Breeders’ Cup on Oct. 31.

Hialeah was hardest hit of the Florida tracks, suffering an estimated $1 million in damages.

“I’m so depressed that I just had to get away,” said John Brunetti, Hialeah’s president, at Del Mar the other day.

Brunetti said that there was major damage to the track’s tote board, and many of the royal palms that lined the entrance to Hialeah were destroyed.

“We’re looking for replacements (for the trees),” Brunetti said. “But what we’ll have now is some very big trees alongside some very small ones.”

Horse Racing Notes

Fillies supplemented into the Del Mar Debutante won the stake six consecutive years, starting in 1985, and two more have a good chance to win the $250,000 one-mile race for 2-year-olds Saturday. Zoonaqua, undefeated in two starts and winner of the Sorrento at Del Mar on Aug. 19, was made eligible for the Debutante with a payment of $10,000, as was Beal Street Blues, also unstopped in two races and winner of the Miss Oceana by 14 lengths at Arlington International in her last outing. Alex Solis, who rode La Spia and Beyond Perfection to victory in the last two Debutantes, will be aboard Medici Bells, the third-place finisher in the Sorrento. The field, in post-position order: Best Dress, Beal Street Blues, Fibs Galore, Zoonaqua, Anybody’s Natural, Fit N Fappy, Sweet Mama, Princess Lao, Medici Bells and Seattle Drama.

On Sunday, Exchange and Fowda, at 120 pounds apiece, are the co-high weights in the $200,000 Chula Vista Handicap, with Vieille Vigne, at 118 pounds, expected to try winning the stake for the second consecutive year. . . . The $250,000 Del Mar Handicap will be run Monday. . . . Trainer Bob Baffert, whose Wheeler Oil dead-heated with Boss Soss in the De Anza Stakes on Aug. 12, bought Boss Soss with a high bid of $275,000 at the Lonimar Stables dispersal. . . . Trainer Chris Speckert said that Pleasant Stage was insured for a “substantial amount.” Thomas Mellon Evans’ champion 2-year-old filly died of a heart attack a week ago today.

Certam De May, a 3-year-old filly who broke her maiden in a $32,000 claiming race at Hollywood Park in May, was a six-length winner in the Sandy Blue Stakes Thursday, giving Kent Desormeaux his third winner on the card. Certam De May, trained by Craig Lewis, has three victories and three seconds in her last six starts. . . . Pat Valenzuela missed his third winner of the day in the seventh race when Hail Wilder, the first-place finisher, was disqualified to second place by the stewards.

Arazi, a disappointment on both sides of the Atlantic this year after being voted North America’s championship 2-year-old colt last year, returns to action Sunday in a one-mile stake in Paris.