DEL MAR : Gutterman Goes Off-Broadway to Start Spreading the News

DEL MAR —  Something unusual happened in racing Thursday. The right guy was hired for the right job.

Too often, the wrong guy gets the job, then spends his tenure trying to figure out which pegs go in which holes. He either gets tired of fooling with the pegs, or the guys who hired him pay him off and hand the pegs to somebody else, frequently a somebody else who’s just as ill-qualified.

Allen Gutterman, who signed on as marketing vice president at Hollywood Park, is Churchill Downs’ first important hire since the Kentucky Derby track announced in May that it was buying the Inglewood track for $140 million. Bringing Gutterman from New York should be proof that Churchill Downs is looking at the long term, that it’s serious about finding the best available people to improve the product.

Gutterman may not be the messiah, but it’s reassuring to know that Hollywood Park has hired someone who has been around the block more than once. He knows the location of the quarter pole, and all the rest of the poles. He understands the backside as well as the front. Both the horseman and the horseplayer should be comfortable with Gutterman.

The irony about Gutterman’s coming to Hollywood Park is that the track had the chance to hire him once before, but blew it. Several years ago, when the place was R.D. Hubbard’s Hollywood Park, Gutterman, having taken the Meadowlands in New Jersey as far he could, came out for a look. Though only in his 40s, he left with the feeling that Hollywood Park wanted someone younger.

The guy they hired was younger. He came from Nevada, where he had worked for one of the casinos. Hollywood Park also had a casino, but this guy was supposed to market horse racing. He spent the better part of a year trying to find the quarter pole, then took a generous severance package and moved on.

It turned out that Hollywood Park had done Gutterman a favor. He left the Meadowlands for a prestigious job with the New York Racing Assn., which operates Belmont Park, Saratoga and Aqueduct. One of his master strokes was packaging the late-season premier races at Belmont. These stakes had been scattered, but Gutterman ran them all on two days and sold them to television. “Super Saturday” and “Breeders’ Cup Preview Day,” as they were called, gave Belmont Park two fall afternoons to remember.

“I had four good years in New York,” said Gutterman, whose idea of a perfect day is an afternoon of racing and an evening at a Broadway show. The last time I saw him was on a Manhattan street in June, the day after the Belmont Stakes. He was wearing a tuxedo and was on his way to the Tony Awards.

Four years into Gutterman’s stint in New York, Kenny Noe showed up to run the three tracks. Noe is a lifetime horseman, as good a fit on the backstretch as a pail of oats, but an executive whose regard for the nuances of marketing is nonexistent. Gutterman went into Noe’s office to volunteer to take his vacation before the serious work began. Noe told him that when he got back from vacation, he could clean out his desk.

The last several years, Gutterman has worked for New York City OTB. It’s horse betting without a track, which for Gutterman was a bagel without the lox.

“I’ll miss New York, but returning to work at a track will be well worth it,” Gutterman said Thursday. “I have a lot of friends in California, and that should help. There’s a consolidation going on in racing, and Churchill Downs is well-positioned to be at the forefront. It’s going to be an exciting time to be working for them.”

The Churchill Downs closing on the Hollywood Park deal, originally scheduled for late August, has been put off until late September. Hollywood’s next meet starts Nov. 10.

“We’ll have to put a Band-Aid on that one,” said Gutterman, who arrives at the end of September. “There’s not enough time to do much else. Then we’ll bear down for next year.”

*

When the Del Mar meet began, trainer Julio Canani figured he had a leading contender in Tuzla for the $400,000 Ramona Handicap.

Canani will be running a horse Saturday in the Ramona, but her name is Tranquility Lake and Tuzla is one of the horses she’ll have to beat.

This situation developed after David Milch, Canani’s client, sold Tuzla last month to Robert and Janice McNair for a reported $1.3 million. In her debut for her new trainer, Bob Baffert, Tuzla ran second to Happyanunoit in the Palomar Handicap on Aug. 11.

Ten horses, including Happyanunoit, are entered in the Ramona, which is run at 1 1/8 miles on grass. This is the field, from the rail out: Que Belle, Sierra Virgen, Sapphire Ring, Vyatka, Bella Chiarra, Tranquility Lake, Tuzla, Isle De France, Spanish Fern and Happyanunoit. The high weights are Tuzla and Tranquility Lake, at 121 pounds apiece.

Virginie, winner of the Beverly Hills Handicap at Hollywood Park on July 3, will miss the Ramona because of an foot injury.

*

With Vyatka and Sierra Virgen scratched Thursday to run in the Ramona, Sterling Heights, ridden by Garrett Gomez for trainer Walter Greenman, won Thursday’s CTT and Thoroughbred Owners of California Handicap by 3 1/2 lengths. Andoya nosed out Celibataire for second place.

Sterling Heights had been fourth and third in two earlier starts at the meet. The 4-year-old filly, who broke her maiden at Del Mar last year, won for the fourth time in 16 starts.

*

Laffit Pincay’s first-race victory with Frantic Frances was the 8,783rd of his career, leaving him 50 short of Bill Shoemaker’s record. . . . Prime Timber, making his first start since a fourth-place finish in the Kentucky Derby, runs in the second race on today’s twilight card. . . . Mazel Trick, operated on last week after suffering a career-ending ankle injury five days before the Pacific Classic, will be flown to Kentucky today for observation by veterinarian Larry Bramlage, who did the surgery. . . . More Than Ready, one of the best 2-year-olds in training, will miss Saturday’s Hopeful at Saratoga because of a fever.