Page 131 - July 2019

Los Alamitos - 1954
On Aug. 3, 1947, Frank Vessels Sr. presented six non-betting races to a crowd of around 2,000, who sat on makeshift bleachers in what was the backyard of the Vessels ranch.
grandstand. The little track in Orange County had indeed gone “big time.”
The ensuing years were good ones. Business was brisk, and more important, the future
was bright. The track entered the 60’s with 55 days of sport, split into spring and fall sessions. Attendance was averaging better than 6,000 daily, and the mutuel handle per day was around half a million dollars . . . and growing.
Suddenly, in a hotel suite in Tulsa, Oklahoma, while attending a meeting designed to further
the scope of the American Quarter Horse Association, Frank Vessels Sr. passed away. It was February of 1963, and Frank Jr. had a very large pair of shoes to fill, but he was prepared.
His father had always believed that “doing was the best way to learn,” and he applied that formula to his son. And Frank Jr. had learned; the small jobs as well as the big ones, and the dirty ones right along with the choice. It may not have been all fun, but it worked, and as Frank Sr. probably would have said, “That’s what counts.”
The business trend at Los Alamitos continued upward. The average for 58 “split” days in 1967 had reached 7,880 (attendance) and $656,391 (handle).
Then, after passage of California Assembly Bill 1082, the decision was made to take another big step . . . night racing. One of the finest lighting systems in the country was installed, and on Tuesday, July 23, 1968, Los Alamitos introduced night racing to Southern California.
The second-guessers? Oh, they were still around, wagging their fingers and predicting doom, but their numbers had shrunk considerably. Perhaps the “cowboy operation” on Katella Avenue had fooled them too many times before.
A then-record crowd of 16,414 showed up for that inaugural card under the lights, and when the first four Saturdays of the meeting attracted 16,632, 18,183 (all-time record), 16,580, and
15,371, the consensus of opinion was that Los Alamitos had really arrived.
But by September, it became obvious that something had gone amiss when the attendance figures began to fall off.
The downward trend in patronage worsened in October, and by November the bottom fell out completely. You could toss your losing ticket out of the Press Box without hitting anything but empty seats.
In July, you had the feeling you were a part of the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but by the final week of the meet, you felt more like you were at a duck hunt in Alaska.
What caused the depression? Many things.
For starters, the season had been lengthened
from 58 days, split equally between spring and
fall, to 78 nights stretching from July 23 through November 11. Then, too, there was a disastrous three-week dark period in September to escape an overlap with the Los Angeles County Fair meeting at Pomona. The season peaked too early, mainly because of curiosity seekers who had never viewed racing under the lights; the cool weather and fog in October and November kept people away, and the three-week break hurt the meeting’s momentum.
Still, in spite of the problems, the average attendance for that inaugural night session was 8,568, failing by a mere 30 people per program of equaling the record spring stand of 1967, which, of course, was considerably shorter.
It was apparent, though, that changes were needed, and they were made.
The opening date for the 1969 meeting
was moved up a month (June 24) and the brief break in scheduling was eliminated. The season would run 13 weeks – consecutively – and
close on September 22. It was a solution to
two problems, but it created another . . . the earlier start meant that Los Alamitos would overlap with the daytime Thoroughbred meet at
Hollywood Park for four-and-a-half weeks. It was thus that Los Alamitos kicked off
its second season of night racing on a note of cautious optimism.
But the battle for fans wasn’t fatal, far from it. The Quarter Horses more than held their own.
The ’69 meeting didn’t have the frenzied beginning of the first night stand, but fortunately, neither did it match that inaugural meet’s sudden death in the fall. When the 78th night was
history, Los Alamitos had a new record for average attendance – 9,025. And along the way they had introduced two more “firsts” to Southern California – 870-yard races and quinella wagering.
The second-guessers were silent.
With the success of the year before, the stage was set for a banner meeting in 1970, or so it seemed. But unable to solve its labor difficulties, Los Alamitos was to open 12 days (nights) later than scheduled because of a strike.
However, in spite of the tardy start, last year’s 66-night meet set new highs in average attendance – 9,492, and average mutuel handle - $760,349. And no matter what some of the die-hard doubters might say, that’s big business.
In fact, such established Thoroughbred meetings as Bay Meadows, Delaware Park, Fairmount Park, Keeneland, Lincoln Downs, Narragansett, Tropical Park, and others would have been overjoyed to have matched Los Alamitos’ 1970 attendance.
From a local standpoint, of the three running- horse meetings in the Los Angeles area, Los Alamitos showed the highest percentage increase
in patronage last year – 4.9. The session at Santa Anita showed a gain of 4.4 percent, while the Thoroughbreds at Hollywood Park were up but 0.1 percent. And the Los Angeles County Fair meet at Pomona, which offered eight Thoroughbred, two Harness, and two Quarter Horse races per day, saw its attendance fall off by 8.6 percent.
SPEEDHORSE, July 2019 129
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM JUNE 1971 ISSUE
E