Change for the Bettor : Hollywood Park’s Hubbard Fuels Innovation

When Marje Everett was ousted as chairman of the board at Hollywood Park in 1991, the controversy that had persisted through her long administration didn’t go with her.

R.D. Hubbard, Everett’s successor, also has problems. One of his detractors has described him as “Marje Everett in pants.”

In many ways, Everett and Hubbard are alike. They seem to thrive on a good battle, and revel in the political infighting that is so much a part of racing.

Don’t invite Hubbard and the California Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Assn. (CHBPA) to the same party, for instance. Hubbard angered some horsemen by introducing an expanded schedule of Friday night racing, and by helping the city of Inglewood, where the track is, pass a referendum that will enable Hollywood Park to open a card-playing club next year.

On the other hand, shareholders at Hollywood Park, while not always agreeing with Hubbard’s full-speed-ahead style, are enjoying substantial investment gains.

“No one’s more involved in the racing game than Dee Hubbard,” said Harry Ornest, vice chairman of the Hollywood Park board and the track’s second-largest stockholder. “He’s proved this in the last three years.”

Ornest backed Hubbard in a proxy fight to unseat Everett, a name-calling skirmish that cost the Hollywood shareholders more than $10 million when it ended three years ago. Hubbard was paid about $4 million of that amount for his costs in the battle.

Others in racing do not give Hubbard the high marks he gets from Ornest.

“Dee’s a visionary,” said Tom Gamel, who in recent years has been a board member at both Santa Anita and Hollywood Park. “He has the best interests of the sport of horse racing at heart. And he understands the sport better than any track operator in the country.”

But . . .

“All the spending Dee has done at Hollywood is a mistake,” Gamel added. “He hasn’t done a good job of marketing the sport. I don’t think he’s sold the customer on coming to the track. One of his problems is that he’s not a day-to-day operations guy. He’s a big-picture guy.”

Brian Sweeney, chief operating officer of the CHBPA, said that Hubbard has been counterproductive in the state capital.

“No one in racing did very well in Sacramento this year,” Sweeney said. “I think Hubbard is one of the problems. He’s one of the lead guys speaking for the industry, and he wants his own way, and that’s not a style that’s particularly effective.”

Hubbard could not be reached to respond to Sweeney’s comments.

Hubbard is indeed a “big-picture guy.” Besides a stake of about 14% in Hollywood Park, he is a majority owner of Ruidoso Downs, a track in the mountains of eastern New Mexico that runs some thoroughbreds but is best known for quarter horses; he is the majority owner of the Woodlands in Kansas City, Kan., a facility that races horses and greyhounds, and he owns the Multnomah Greyhound Track in Portland, Ore.

Hubbard’s empire might have been even larger. In 1991, he withdrew his support of a plan to build a thoroughbred track in suburban Seattle. More recently, after being instrumental in ending years of infighting for a new horse racing license in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, he has restricted his involvement to co-managing the track through his umbrella company, R.D. Hubbard Enterprises.

Many shareholders were relieved to see Hubbard back off on racing in Texas, where long-term success is iffy. Santa Anita made a substantial investment in Canterbury Downs, a track in suburban Minneapolis that opened in 1985. Endemic of racing’s decline, Canterbury is shuttered, its parking lot now used to bus patrons to an Indian casino only a few miles away.

Even before Hollywood Park dropped out of the proposed Texas racing project, the track spent more than $750,000 on legal fees.

“When I came in, the track’s debt was around $100 million,” Hubbard said. “We’ve paid off the debt and the company is in the best financial shape it’s ever been in. I’d be happier, though, if we worked together more. Our industry is too fragile to withstand a constant test of wills.”

Hubbard’s supporters praise his remodeling of Hollywood Park, at a cost of $20 million.

Some who have worked with him, however, say that he is loathe to dwell on problems, that he prefers hopscotching to positive projects when crises develop. His tendency to move quickly has sometimes been troublesome.

At Kentucky Derby time this year, Hollywood Park had to renege on a plan to take betting on extra races from Churchill Downs. The CHBPA reported to the California Horse Racing Board that carrying the extra races would violate a state law. That increased the acrimony between Hubbard and the horsemen.

Hubbard probably enjoys a better reputation nationally than he does locally. He is at the forefront of the tracks that are trying to combine racing with casino gambling.

“All businesses must be creative,” said Jerry Carroll, the president of Turfway Park in Florence, Ky., at a recent seminar in Las Vegas. “We need to change our philosophy. The new breed of racetrack entrepreneur, people such as R.D. Hubbard, made money in the free-enterprise system by taking risks. The problem is, any time you propose something, the first thing people do is give you eight reasons why it won’t work. We need to be digging in the same tunnel.”

Another track operator, Charles Cella of Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., sees Hubbard in a different light. “He reminds me of a missile out of control,” Cella said.

While Oaklawn and Santa Anita were dropping out of the American Championship Racing Series, contributing to the scuttling of a promising three-year program that increased the sport’s coverage on television, Hubbard supported the concept by including two of Hollywood Park’s races.

For that, Hubbard earned Tony Chamblin’s support.

“Dumping the championship series was petty and egocentric,” said Chamblin, president of the Assn. of Racing Commissioners International. “Now the TRA (Thoroughbred Racing Assn.) has this search on for a commissioner, or whatever they’re going to call him. I hear that they’re going to pay $500,000 a year, or even more. Whoever it is, he’s going to have to face the same constraints that have existed in the past. They’d be better off if they channeled all that money into the revival of the championship racing series.”

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The town of Smith Center, Kan., needed the Hubbard family to stay over the 2,000 mark in population. One of eight children, Hubbard went to a community college. By the 1970s, he was chairman of a glass-making company that became the second largest in the nation. A couple of years ago, the company was sold to Japanese interests. Hubbard, who is paid $400,000 a year by Hollywood Park, reportedly is worth more than $100 million.

Responding to suggestions that he has hidden agendas, such as eliminating horse racing at Hollywood Park or bringing greyhound racing to California, Hubbard said: “My only motive is to improve horse racing in California. But you can’t sit back and just offer a race every 30 minutes, like in the old days. The public wants more. I’m told that in Las Vegas, 35% of those who gamble at the tables also go to the race books. A considerable number of card players are horse players, and we hope to tap into that market at Hollywood Park.”

Besides his track interests, the 58-year-old Hubbard is involved in breeding operations in Kentucky and New Mexico and races a large stable of horses. He likes to bet the races, and better identifies with his customers’ needs as a result. The Daily Racing Form refers to Hollywood Park as “the horse players’ track.”

Although both colleagues and adversaries wonder if Hubbard is heaping too much on his plate, those who work closest to him usually spend much of their time trying to keep up.

“I’ve never met a guy who can juggle so much,” said Bruce Rimbo, executive vice president of the Woodlands and president of Hubbard Enterprises. “He’ll be working hard on something at Hollywood Park and at the same time have his finger on the pulse of what’s going on at Ruidoso, 500 miles away. I know one thing, he stretches me every day I come to work.”

Hubbard shuffles his high-level managers around his properties, but the faces have basically stayed the same. Rick Baedeker went from the Woodlands to a vice president’s job at Hollywood; Rick Henson has had stints at Ruidoso, Hollywood and the Woodlands; Don Robbins, Mike Finnigan and Eual Wyatt Jr. are all holdovers from the Everett regime at Hollywood, Robbins having been promoted to president of the track five months after Hubbard took over.

Rimbo, who was publishing a quarter horse magazine, met Hubbard in the early 1980s.

“I was trying to sell him some advertising and he wound up owning a third of the magazine,” Rimbo said. “Dee listens to his people. He wants a lot of input. He’s at his best in negotiations. His timing is terrific. He knows when it’s the time to bend, and when it’s time to stand firm.”

Hubbard and Gamel were unsuccessful in trying to take over Hollywood Park with a tender offer in 1986, and Hubbard said that he challenged Everett’s control four years later because she refused him a position on the board. Hubbard himself was reluctant until recently to give John Brunetti a seat on the board, even though Brunetti, the principal stockholder of Hialeah Park in Florida, and his family have become one of Hollywood Park’s largest shareholders.