Hollywood Park Is in the Pink for Meeting to Take Wing Today

Hollywood Park will have some thin legs in the infield to go with the thin legs on the track when it opens a 32-day fall season today.

Thoroughbreds, who carry their weights of 1,000 pounds and more on four spindly legs, are nothing new, but the flamingos at Hollywood Park are. Thirty of them arrived on loan from the Greater Los Angeles Zoo at Griffith Park earlier this month and have taken up residence near the infield lakes.

Hunch bet today: Miami Point, in the second race, because the inspiration for the Hollywood flamingos came from South Florida, where Hialeah Park has been showing off the pink birds for generations.

Hunch bet for Thursday: Pinkie Schoop, in the fifth race.

John Brunetti, the president of Hialeah, is a substantial shareholder in Hollywood Park. He and his family own about 6% of the stock. R.D. Hubbard, board chairman of Hollywood, once said that Brunetti promised him some of the Hialeah flamingos, and Brunetti countered that he would send the birds if Hubbard gave him a seat on the board.

“Getting the flamingos from Florida to California is not as simple as it sounds,” Brunetti said from his Hialeah office Tuesday. “You don’t just pack them up and send them. There are restrictions on birds like this being transported from one aviary to another. After their experience with the flamingos from the Los Angeles zoo, some of the Hollywood Park people are going to visit Hialeah next year, and maybe we’ll be able to do something.

“As for my being on the board, I’d like to think that something’s is in the works for that to happen. I know Dee (Hubbard) would like to trim down the board some, but maybe there’ll still be room for me.”

Joe Robinson, Hollywood’s plant superintendent, has been both amused and terrified by the flamingos. “They’re very colonized,” Robinson said. “You move left and they move right, and you move right and they move left. You could almost dance with them.”

The species at Hollywood is Chilean and, unlike the taller, brighter Caribbean variety at Hialeah, is not supposed to fly.

“They say turkeys are not supposed to fly, too,” Robinson said. “But the first time we let them out, they went over an eight-inch fence and dived straight into the water. Then I was sitting in a boat in one of the lakes the other day when some of the flamingos jumped over a 14-inch fence. A second group jumped over a 2 1/2-foot fence and was headed for the turf course. I said to myself, ‘What am I letting myself in for here?’ It took us about four hours to corral them. Things will be better once they get acclimated.”

Brunetti, who’s been in charge at Hialeah since the late 1970s, said that he can recall no incidents of flamingos interfering with races.

Hialeah still has a flock of 500 flamingos despite Hurricane Andrew, which accounted for about $1 million in damage to the track.

“We only lost one flamingo,” Brunetti said. “When the storm hit, they submerged in the water up to their beaks, and hovered until it was gone. Their survival instincts were incredible.”

The meet begins and ends with major stakes races on dirt, and in between is a cluster of six grass races worth $1.75 million, starting on Nov. 22 with the $400,000 Hollywood Derby.

Other major grass races are the $400,000 Matriarch, which could decide the Eclipse Award for fillies and mares on Nov. 29, and the $500,000 Hollywood Turf Cup on Dec. 13. The richest dirt races are for 2-year-olds, the $250,000 Starlet on Dec. 19 and the $500,000 Hollywood Futurity on Dec. 20.

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The stakes opener at Hollywood, the Moccasin Breeders’ Cup at seven furlongs for 2-year-old fillies, has drawn seven horses, including Blue Moonlight, the 2-1 morning-line favorite.

Blue Moonlight’s career began with a second and a first in May at Hollywood, but she didn’t do as well after moving into stakes company. After winning a minor stake in September at Fairplex Park, Blue Moonlight was the early leader on Oct. 10 in the Oak Leaf Stakes at Santa Anita, before finishing fifth.

Horse Racing Notes

The first post is 12:30 p.m. for all days except Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, when the races begin at 11 a.m. . . . If Kostroma doesn’t run in the Japan Cup in Tokyo on Nov. 29, she will stay home to race against Flawlessly and Super Staff in the Matriarch. . . . Medici Bells, the 8-5 favorite in last Saturday’s California Cup Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita, suffered a broken cannon bone while running fifth and will be sidelined for at least three months.