Santa Anita

When the state of California realized that there was money to be made through horse racing, it passed a law reinstituting pari-mutuel wagering, enabling San Francisco businessman Charles Strub and producer Hal Roach to found Santa Anita Park in 1934. Overcoming conservative social forces, they built a magnificent new racetrack in Arcadia, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Denizens of Hollywood flocked to Santa Anita like ducks to water, as did the rest of the local population. Santa Anita became the go-to location for the plethora of racing films made in the 1930s and 1940s.

Introduction

The invention of the wheel is frequently cited as a seminal turning point in the history of human development, but that grand event was surely predated by an equally important occurrence: the first time a man managed to climb onto a horse’s back and ride the animal an appreciable distance without falling off. Since that long-ago day in the misty past, horses have become an integral part of human society, providing us with recreation, sport, companionship, a means of transportation, an ally in war, and an aid to labor, as well as supplying an object lesson in the appreciation of beauty. Simply looking at horses makes a person feel better....

La Princesse Aly Khan

Discovered while performing red-hot Spanish dance numbers with her father at Agua Caliente, Rita Hayworth would become one of Hollywood’s most prominent movie stars and sex symbols. Her roles in Gilda and TheLadyfromShanghai and her dance partnership with Fred Astaire in YouWereNeverLovelier and You’llNeverGetRich showcased her dual talents as actress and dancer. But when Rita met Prince Aly Khan on the Riviera in 1948, she was swept off her feet by his charm and good looks. The son of the Aga Khan, Aly was one of the world’s leading Thoroughbred owner-breeders. When they married, Aly gave Rita several horses, including Double Rose, who finished second in the 1949 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. The marriage quickly unraveled, and Rita returned to Hollywood and her adoring fans.

The Gamblers

Attending the races can be fun, sociable, and a means of generating publicity, but it has its pitfalls—gambling being the worst. Mickey Rooney, Chico Marx, Al Jolson, Jimmy Durante, Desi Arnaz, and John Huston all suffered from gambling addictions in one form or another, and all dropped fortunes in the process. Rooney referred to Del Mar as a “toilet” for all the money he flushed away there. Durante made a career out of laughing at himself, including his inexplicable habit of betting on five or six horses in a single race. Huston had bookies and agents who placed bets for him in all the major racing centers in the world. Chico Marx surpassed them all, squandering a huge fortune at the track, in card games, and at casinos, leaving him flat broke and dependent on Social Security checks in the last decades of his life.

Hollywood before Santa Anita

With pari-mutuel wagering outlawed in California in the 1920s and early 1930s and Prohibition in effect throughout the United States, newly rich Hollywood types flocked to Tijuana, Mexico,where racing, gambling, drinking, and the nightlife thrived at the Hipodromo de Tijuana and at Agua Caliente, a hotel-casino complex that included thenightclub where Rita Hayworth wasdiscovered and a racetrack where Hollywood whet its appetite for horse racing. The Agua Caliente Handicap became the richest horserace in the world, won by both Phar Lap and Seabiscuit. A horse owned by director Raoul Walsh won the Agua Caliente Derby, and producer Joe Schenck once dropped $100,000 on a single race.It was all captured in a mural executed by bandleader Xavier Cugat depicting the Hollywood elite frolicking in Tijuana.