There's No Sunshine in Arcadia (or in Hallandale Beach)

Well, they took entries for the Sunshine Millions last week, and I'll admit that it was with a ghoulish sense of glee that I went to the "Televised Horse Racing" section of the Daily Racing Form's website and realized that this year the contest between Florida-Breds and California-Breds wouldn't be on NBC. I guess that as a fan of racing, I should rue the loss of any racing on network TV; it seems that in the very near future the only race that will be there is the Kentucky Derby. But when I clicked on the link, and saw that they were going to be on HRTV (who gets that channel, by the way?), it made me feel that something that was inevitable had happened.

Let me stipulate here that I do not detest the Sunshine Millions; while I think they are a bogus event, and a profligate waste of precious purse money, I think they were at least a stab for something worthwhile, and that in creating them, Magna was trying to do the right thing - to create an event that would bring casual fans both to the racetrack and in front of the televison.

No, my problem with the Sunshine Millions is more with the way it is a microcosm of the way that Magna operates, of how it almost invariably gets wrong what it tries to do. Let's face it, friends: as a racetrack owner, Frank Stronach has been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. When he started buying racetracks, I'll admit that I - along with countless other diehard fans of racing - were very excited; here, we thought, was a renegade who would shake up the poisonously complacent mindset of those who ran our great sport, and save us from our slow drift toward irrelevance. He was new blood, and his background as an industrial titan and greatly successful thoroughbred breeder could only help. Oh, what heady days they were....

Now, of course, the bitter fruits of Stronach's ill-fated stewardship are evident to anyone with anything more than a passing interest in racing. Let's take a look at some of the things that Magna has wrought:

- In a time when TVG has made great inroads, and has enabled most semi-serious fans to subscribe to an all-racing channel, Santa Anita and Gulfstream, the two premier winter meetings, are unavailable to most fans.

- Gulfstream's renovations is a disaster. Stronach has managed to do the impossible: create a new facility that has alienated diehard fans, and which will fail to bring any new fans to the track

- The state of Maryland racing is a joke. It may be unfair to blame this on Magna - Maryland racing had myriad problems before they got involved - but Stronach is still the baker left holding a lousy cake

There are many more examples, but time prevents me from cataloging them. I miss Santa Anita, but I'll find a way to make it until Hollywood opens...

More on this later. Cheers.