Hollywood Park Racetrack
Aerial view of Hollywood Park in 2006. The L.A. Forum is visible to the upper left.
Location	Inglewood, California, USA
Coordinates	33°57′1.61″N118°20′16.11″W / 33.9504472°N 118.3378083°WCoordinates: 33°57′1.61″N118°20′16.11″W / 33.9504472°N 118.3378083°W
Owned by	Bay Meadows Land Co. (Stockbridge Capital Group)
Date opened	June 10, 1938
Date closed	December 22, 2013
Course type	Thoroughbred. Flat: Synthetic & Turf.
Notable races	Hollywood Gold Cup (G1) American Oaks Invitational (G1) Hollywood Derby (G1) Matriarch Stakes (G1) Oak Tree Racing Association: Yellow Ribbon Stakes (G1) Hirsch Memorial Turf Championship Stakes (G1) Ancient Title Stakes (G1)

Hollywood Park, later sold and referred to as Betfair Hollywood Park, was a thoroughbredrace course located in Inglewood, California, about 3 miles (5 km) from Los Angeles International Airport and adjacent to the Forum indoor arena.^[1]^[2] In 1994 Hollywood Park Casino, with a pokercard room, was added to the racetrack complex.^[1] Horse racing and training were shut down in December 2013 though the casino operations continued while a new state of the art casino building opened in October 2016.^[1]^[2]

The former horse racetrack area will be the site of SoFi Stadium, home of the Los Angeles Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers of the National Football League (NFL), when the stadium is completed in 2020. Until then, the Rams temporarily play home games at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Downtown Los Angeles and the Chargers play at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson.

Hollywood Park is a multi-purpose entertainment and gambling venue in Inglewood, California. The Hollywood Park poker room competes with the site’s casino and racecourse to offer excellent action. The poker room spreads well in excess of 50 poker tables. TV poker personality Norman Chad is one of many celebrities to call Hollywood Park home. 259 reviews of Hollywood Park Casino 'I love that this casino is non smoking and really clean! They feature amazing new younger L.A. Based artists like sculptor Matt Wedel who made the sculptures outside the building. I played poker in the big Hollywood Park Casino - 2019 All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (with Photos) Casinos - Yelp.

1History
- 1.3Sale and later developments

History[edit]

Founding and early years[edit]

Hollywood Turf Club, circa 1940s

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The track was opened on June 10, 1938 by the Hollywood Turf Club^[3] the racetrack was designed by noted racetrack architect Arthur Froehlich. Its chairman was Jack L. Warner^[3] of the Warner Bros. film studio. Prominent shareholders included Jack Warner's brother and fellow Warner Bros. executive Harry, Hollywood studio executives Walt Disney, Samuel Goldwyn, Darryl Zanuck, actors Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Joan Blondell, George Jessel, Ronald Colman and Ralph Bellamy. In addition to being shareholders film directors Raoul Walsh and Mervyn LeRoy were also founding members of the track's Board of Directors with Jack and Harry Warner and Al Jolson.

War closure and rebuilding[edit]

Hollywood Park closed from 1942 to 1944 due to World War II, where it was used as a storage facility. In 1949, the grandstand and clubhouse were destroyed by a fire; the rebuilt facility reopened in 1950. In 1984, the racetrack was extended from one mile (1.6 km) around to 1¹⁄₈ miles (1.8 km) around prior to the first Breeders Cup race.^{[citation needed]}Harness racing also took place at Hollywood Park.^[4]

By the late 1980s the racetrack Hollywood Park, though frequented by celebrities, was near the point of bankruptcy.^[5] As of 1989, a group of investors was working to buy Los Alamitos Racetrack in California for $68 million.^[6] Los Alamitos, owned by Hollywood Park, was still under its original ownership as of 1991, though a significant portion of the stock had been bought by external investors.^[7]^[8]RD Hubbard became CEO of Hollywood Park in April 1991, after having purchased a portion of the company's stock in late 1990.^[5] He was assisted in the ouster of the former chairman Marje Everett, who had run Hollywood Park since 1972, by company shareholder Tom Gamel and sports businessman Harry Ornest.^[7] In 1991 $20 million was spent improving the racetrack. That year the park earned its first profit in five years, and despite rioting in nearby Los Angeles in 1992, annual profits that year increased to $5.4 million.^[5] By 1993, the Los Angeles Times wrote that 'shareholders at Hollywood Park.. are enjoying substantial investment gains.'^[9] A card club casino was added to the complex in 1994,^{[citation needed]} as Hollywood Park underwent a $100 million expansion into Hollywood Park Casino, which opened in the summer of 1994. Also in 1994, Hollywood Park Inc. purchased the Arizona-based Turf Paradise Race Track for $34 million in stock.^[5]

In May 1995 after the departure of the Rams for St. Louis, the owners of the National Football League teams approved with a 27-1 vote with two abstentions, a resolution supporting a plan to build a $200 million, privately financed stadium on property owned by Hollywood Park for the Los Angeles Raiders.^[10] Then Raiders owner Al Davis balked and refused the deal over a stipulation that he would have had to accept a second team at the stadium. After the deal fell through the Raiders returned to Oakland, California.

Hollywood Park Inc. suffered losses in 1995, though at the end of 1996, Hollywood Park bought Boomtown, Inc. for $188 million. Boomtown operated and owned casinos in several cities such as Las Vegas and New Orleans. Boomtown merged with the casino operator Pinnacle Entertainment in 1998. Hollywood Park was purchased by Churchill Downs Incorporated on September 10, 1999^[5] for $140 million.^{[citation needed]} Churchill Downs acquired Hollywood Park-Casino in the process, which was in turn leased by Hollywood Park Inc. (later named Pinnacle Entertainment).^[5] The previous owners of the track renamed their company Pinnacle Entertainment to concentrate on its gambling interests.^{[citation needed]}

Sale and later developments[edit]

In July 2005, Churchill Downs Incorporated sold the track to the Bay Meadows Land Company which was owned by Stockbridge Capital Group for $260 million in cash.^[11] Under the terms of the deal, the company, which at the time also operated Bay Meadows in San Mateo, was to continue thoroughbred racing at Hollywood Park for at least three years. According to Bay Meadows officials, the continuation of Hollywood Park as a racing venue after that depended on California allowing more gambling, like slot machines, to the track.^[12]

Some of the Hollywood Park land was sold to real estate developers to build a new housing community called the Inglewood Renaissance. Development began in 2005.

New grass was planted on the turf course after Hollywood Park's spring-summer meet in 2005. Due to safety concerns, however, turf racing was not c

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