New Times Los Angeles February 20, 1997 HEADLINE: Horse Power; He's big in horseracing and casinos. He wants to be L.A.'s biggest pro sports landlord. But Hollywood Park chief R. D. Hubbard has some skeletons in his closet BYLINE: By Matthew Heller BODY: For the most pampered patrons of the Hollywood Park horse track, it was a day at the races they weren't likely to forget. On that Sunday a few weeks before Christmas 1990, the track's tony Turf Club was crammed with Hollypark executives, corporate directors, their friends and relatives. A couple of board members began discussing the nasty, no-holds-barred struggle then taking place for control of the track's parent company. The battle pitted Hollywood Park's hard-edged, blue-blooded CEO, Marje Everett, against R. D. Hubbard, a rich entrepreneur and horse fancier from Kansas who was bankrolling a drive among stockholders to dump her. One of the directors talking about the proxy fight, financier Harry Ornest, was a key supporter of Hubbard; the other, actor John Forsythe, was an Everett ally. As bystanders watched in astonishment, the discussion degenerated into angry words and then a free-for-all. Ornest, a former hockey referee, grabbed the distinguished Dynasty star in a headlock. Ornest's son rushed into the fray. Even Everett, then 68, waded in and threw a punch. Afterward, a chagrined Forsythe, who suffered only a few scratches, admitted, "The whole matter is embarrassing, and it reflects poorly on racing." Hubbard wasn't present for the Turf Club tussle. But, as the incident shows, things tend to heat up when he's involved. Hubbard ultimately pushed Everett out and installed himself as chairman of the storied Inglewood track. A former car-windshield salesman now estimated to be worth more than $100 million, he instituted a series of controversial changes at Hollypark, including Friday night racing and construction of a glitzy card casino. He also quickly became a force in the world of legal gambling. Using Hollywood Park stock, he financed the purchase of tracks in Kansas and Arizona. He acquired a firm that runs Las Vegas-style casinos in Reno, New Orleans, and Biloxi, Missis-sippi. And he and some partners recently opened another card casino in Compton. Hubbard's ambitions are hardly sated, though. He also dreams of becoming a power in L.A. professional sports. He hopes to build a new arena for the Lakers and Kings and an NFL stadium on undeveloped land at Hollypark. But he faces heavy competition for both facilities from revenue-hungry L.A. city officials who want the arena built next to the downtown Convention Center and the stadium plunked down inside the historic L.A. Coliseum. Given L.A.'s penchant for political gridlock, however, either or both of those deals could easily fall apart. And if they do, Hubbard is well positioned to ride to the rescue. Indeed, he came within a nose of luring Al Davis and the Raiders to a new home at his track in 1995. "I certainly think it's possible the arena could still end up in Inglewood," says David Simon, president of the Los Angeles Sports Council, which promotes the city as a sports venue. "It is definitely still a live ball game." But even as he schemes to expand his empire, the man who would be L.A.'s biggest pro sports landlord faces a host of troubles. Hollywood Park has lost millions in the past two years, and some thoroughbred owners complain bitterly that its once-elegant image has been badly stained by the casino and other Hubbard innovations. Hollypark lawyers recently agreed to pay nearly $6 million to settle a lawsuit by stockholders who charged that Hubbard had artificially inflated stock prices by exaggerating track revenues and business prospects. His opulent Kansas track, the Woodlands, is in bankruptcy and appears moribund. And Hubbard faces scrutiny by casino regulators that is likely to focus renewed attention on his dealings with a New York sports-concession firm that has been linked to the Mafia. It's a Friday afternoon, and Randall Dee Hubbard is taking a stroll around his Inglewood domain, proudly showing a reporter some of the fruits of his seven years as Hollywood Park's CEO. He points out the landscaped, European-style paddock where patrons can check out the horses before they race. He mentions that flamingos were imported from Florida to populate ornamental lakes he restored after his archrival Everett had paved them over. He moves on to Long Shots, a portion of the grandstand set aside for college students. It looks like a fraternity rec room, complete with bar, dance floor, and betting booths. "They said this whole area last Friday night was packed with kids," Hubbard says jauntily. With his deeply tanned face, silver-streaked goatee, and tall, burly frame, Hubbard, 61, could play a rugged rancher in a classic Western. He often arrives at the track in the morning for a quick jaunt around the stables on his horse, L.A. Blues--one of 150 ponies he owns all or part of around the country. Afternoons, he often strolls the grandstand, chatting with $2 bettors about how the track might be improved. In horsy circles, Hubbard is considered a rogue, a reputation he has burnished by acknowledging his taste for women and scotch as well as fine horses. Answering questions before gambling regulators in Texas, where he was seeking a horse-track license, he admitted to having been charged in 1980 with marijuana possession in El Paso. "I think he would have been very comfortable in a Damon Runyon story," says Harvey Englander, an L.A. political consultant who has worked with Hubbard. "He comes from an era of dealmakers and backrooms. He likes being seen around about town with limos and drivers. He's more a buccaneer than a corporate executive. He's entrepreneurial, he's flashy, he's tough. He'll never be president or chairman of IBM. He's very fast-talking, always has a deal working, a plan going. He's always the center of attention." A critic in the horseracing industry once described him as a "missile out of control." Hubbard chuckles slyly when the quote is read to him. "You gotta know him ," he says of the detractor. "If you don't talk to him before 11 o'clock in the morning, he's dead-ass drunk. So he'll say anything. He's a wild man." Despite his wealth and opulent lifestyle, Hubbard prefers to be seen as just plain folks, no different from the small-time wagerers at his tracks and card casinos--unpretentious, plainspoken, more comfortable in roadhouse bars than at black-tie soirees. "I prefer boots and jeans to suits and ties," he says. But Hubbard is one country boy who's livin' large. His shares of Hollywood Park stock alone are worth about $30 million, and the company pays him another $400,000 a year for his executive services. He and his third wife, a former schoolteacher, own houses in Palm Desert and New Mexico as well as an L.A. condo. He owns a $15-million Western art collection, much of it acquired from legendary oilman Edward Doheny. A native of Smith Center, Kansas, a prairie town near the Nebraska border, Hubbard started out in the business world at age 11, delivering ice to customers of his father's icehouse. Later, he strung electrical lines to farmhouses, worked construction jobs, and followed wheat harvests through the Midwest. After graduating from community college, he was hired in 1957 as a junior high teacher and basketball coach. But with a young wife and two children to support, Hubbard soon needed more income. In 1959 he went to work in Wichita for Safelite Glass, a supplier of car windshields. He turned out to be a brilliant salesman, hustling business from insurance agents who needed to replace windows in damaged autos. Six years later, he was Safelite's president. With business booming, Hubbard acquired control of two other glassmakers that were ailing financially and, in 1978, merged them to form American Federated Glass Industries. At the time, it was the smallest glass-manufacturing company in North America. Within a decade, however, it was the second-largest, with annual sales in excess of $650 million. Hubbard then took the firm private in a leveraged buyout worth $921 million. Hubbard got involved with horses in his early Safelite days, raising show animals. After switching to quarter horses, he raced at tracks all over the country, including Los Alamitos in Orange County and Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico. He later stepped up to thoroughbreds. His ponies did so well that he received invitations to drop by the royal box at Ascot. In 1988 Hubbard and another avid horseracing fan, Dr. Edward Allred, a Long Beach family-planning clinic operator, paid $2.6 million for Ruidoso Downs. That same year, Hubbard teamed up with an old pal, Wichita developer Richard Boushka, to submit a successful bid for the first horse-track license to be issued in Kansas, beating out three competitors. Soon Hubbard found himself on a self-proclaimed mission: to rid horseracing of traditional thinking and revive its sagging popularity. "The industry has been suffering, but I want to turn that around," he has said. His formula was simple. First, he wanted to exploit a major unused asset at tracks: the large swatches of land surrounding them. The undeveloped acreage could be used for other forms of gambling, such as casinos. A consummate salesman, Hubbard also hoped to boost attendance with old-fashioned razzle-dazzle fan promotions, such as $1 beers and hot dogs, free T-shirts and rock concerts between races. Extra patronage generated by the casinos would benefit the tracks and vice versa. And this was the concept Hubbard brought with him in 1990 when he made his biggest move in horseracing--the bid to seize control of one of its crown jewels, Hollywood Park. But first he had to get rid of Hollypark's imperious chairwoman, Everett. Marjorie Lindheimer Everett's whole life was bound up with thoroughbred racing. Her father ran two tracks near Chicago and, after dropping out of college at 18, she began helping him out. After his death, she managed the business until 1968, when she sold the tracks. But she didn't get out of racing. In the early 1970s she became Hollypark's largest shareholder and moved to L.A. As CEO, Everett helped make the track one of the busiest--and most glamorous--in the nation. She brought celebrities such as Cary Grant, John Forsythe, and theatrical producer Jimmie Nederlander onto the board of directors. Profits soared. To terrified employees, however, Everett was the Leona Helmsley of the racing world, a dragon lady in riding breeches. They complained that she ran the track as a personal fiefdom, throwing tantrums and firing underlings on the spot for infractions such as breaking dress codes. "Everyone hated her," says one ex-employee who still fears Everett. "She was the type of woman who'd cut your balls off and throw them in your face." (Everett, a Holmby Hills resident, declined to be interviewed for this story.) Everett also alarmed some stockholders by piling up debt with projects such as the $41-million Cary Grant Pavilion, where patrons could watch races simulcast from other tracks, and her $58-million purchase of Los Alamitos. "Her problem was, she did everything her own way," says Noble Threewitt, former chairman of a California horsemen's group. "She didn't ask anybody's opinion on anything." In 1989, when Hollywood Park lost $11 million and Los Alamitos was sold at a loss, Everett came under fire from major stockholders. One of them, Denver businessman Tom Gamel, threatened a proxy fight to remove Everett, accusing her of "running a first-class track into the ground." Gamel eventually dropped the threat after getting a seat on the board. Three years earlier, Gamel had gotten together with Hubbard and Orange County megadeveloper Donald Koll to make a $135-million offer for Hollywood Park. The track's board rejected it as insufficient. But by the summer of 1990, Hubbard disclosed that he had acquired a nearly 10-percent stake in the company. A few months later, he launched the proxy fight Gamel had only threatened, betting that stockholders were ready for an infusion of new blood and ideas. Anti-Everett track workers and horse owners quietly rejoiced. Hubbard attacked Everett with the zeal of a political dirty trickster, mounting a smear campaign. In a statement mailed to shareholders in November 1990, he not only accused her of "misjudgment and mismanagement" but also tried to taint her with a 17-year-old corruption scandal. In 1973, Otto Kerner, a federal judge, was convicted of taking bribes when he served as governor of Illinois. According to Hubbard's letter to stockholders, Everett was named as an "unindicted coconspirator" who allegedly paid off Kerner to obtain favorable treatment for her tracks. That characterization, however, seems deceptive at best. Hubbard neglected to mention, for example, that when Kerner was indicted, U.S. Attorney James Thompson praised Everett, saying the community owed her "a debt of gratitude" for coming forward as a witness. "Mrs. Everett was not a target of this investigation, is not a target, and will not be," he said. Hubbard also charged that Everett might have billed the renovation of her home to Hollywood Park. Her spokesman at the time called those allegations "exception-ally scurrilous," adding, "Hubbard knows they're a smear." By December 1990, Everett and Hubbard were trading lawsuits. In a deposition, Everett belittled his racing credentials, grumbling, "I don't know why he would be compared with the next coming of Jesus." In an effort to maintain the loyalty of stockholders, she launched a take-no-prisoners counterattack against Hubbard, dredging up his links to a New York company with past Mafia connections. The firm, Delaware North Companies Inc., has gone by a number of different names since it was founded in 1915 by Louie Jacobs and his brother, who got their start hawking peanuts and popcorn at upstate New York theaters. Food and beverage concessions have been the company's mainstay ever since. But the Jacobses took the business a key step further by making loans to everything from racetracks to baseball teams. Their incentive: They got the concession contract. Sports Illustrated said the Jacobses' business was thought to be "the largest single investor-proprietor in the realm of sport." In 1969 a subsidiary of the Buffalo-based company, then called Emprise, struck a deal with the new owners of the Ruidoso Downs track in New Mexico. Among those owners, who had formed a company called Newco, was Hubbard. But a few months later, state gambling regulators denied Newco an operating license. Everett quoted the New Mexico State Racing Commission's ruling at length in a statement she sent to Hollypark stockholders. Newco, it said, had failed to disclose a $600,000 loan from Emprise--which was partly guaranteed by Hubbard and his wife. The commission concluded that Emprise's business methods were "detrimental to the best interests of racing" and that the company "had a bad general reputation for honesty and fair dealing." At the time Newco was seeking a license, Emprise was under federal and state investigation for alleged ties to organized crime. According to an Arizona congressman who launched a public campaign against Emprise, Louie Jacobs had done business with mob bosses from New York City, Buffalo, and Boston. In 1972, Emprise and two Detroit Mafia figures were convicted of violating racketeering laws when a federal jury in L.A. ruled that they had conspired to obtain secret ownership of a Las Vegas casino. So why was Hubbard approved to run Ruidoso Downs in 1988? Everett quoted the state racing commission as saying it didn't have the funds to conduct a full investigation of his far-flung business activities. She also urged shareholders to consider that, in a sworn deposition during her legal war with Hubbard, he said that he knew nothing about the Emprise loan and that Newco had never been denied a license. Hubbard conceded in a New Times interview that Newco had been denied a license but said the action was reversed a few months later after further hearings. He was only a "minor shareholder" in Newco, he says. Newco did, in fact, get a license, but only after agreeing to restrict Emprise's influence at Ruidoso Downs. By the time the smoke cleared in the battle for control of Hollypark, Hubbard had spent about $3 million to persuade shareholders to dump Everett. And by February 1991, he had enough votes to get rid of her. In a last gasp, enraged Everett supporters urged the California Horse Racing Board to conduct a "comprehensive investigation" of Hubbard's activities, but the board declined. Having promised Hollywood Park's shareholders a "new beginning," Hubbard immediately set to work. During a whirlwind first year, he renovated the track's barns and restored the ornamental lakes. He also introduced Friday night racing, braving opposition from trainers who were unhappy about working late hours and believed that horses wouldn't race as well under lights. In his most significant move, he proposed replacing the Cary Grant Pavilion with a card casino. This was the essence of his plan for boosting patronage and revenues at horse tracks. The casino would generate more traffic for the track; more traffic would mean more betting; more betting would mean higher purses for horse owners. Everybody would be happy. Horse owners, however, saw the casino as a threat. Not only would it sully the purity of their sport, it would drain money from the betting windows. "That card club is a dirty word as far as we're concerned," bristled Threewitt in an interview at the time. But the people Hubbard really needed to persuade weren't thoroughbred owners but the voters of Inglewood, who had to give permission for the introduction of a casino into their economically depressed city. Twice before they had rejected ballot initiatives to allow card clubs. And after Hubbard's measure qualified for the November 1992 ballot, a furious political struggle ensued. Opponents, financed mainly by a casino operator in nearby Bell Gardens, predicted a rise in crime and traffic if a 24-hour casino opened. Detractors also accused Hollypark of ignoring minorities. They distributed flyers showing a black man pitching hay in a stall. "They'll let us in the barn," the handbill said, "but not in the boardroom." Hubbard argued that the casino would be good business for Inglewood, creating 3,000 jobs and $10 million in annual tax revenues for the city. He hired ace political strategist Englander and poured $362,000 into the campaign for his ballot measure. And by election night, Hubbard had squeezed out a narrow victory, with 52 percent of voters backing his casino. But the grand opening of the Hollywood Park Casino in the summer of 1994 proved to be the high-water mark of Hubbard's regime. For over the next two years, he suffered one setback after another. A couple of months after the casino opened, angry shareholders filed their class-action lawsuit, alleging that Hubbard and other Hollypark managers issued false statements about future profits and business prospects to artificially inflate stock prices. Among other things, stockholders claimed, management overstated expected revenues from Hubbard's Kansas racetrack, the Woodlands, which was then plagued by declining attendance and stiff competition from newly approved riverboat-style casinos built along the nearby Missouri River. Shareholders ultimately won $5.8 million, plus interest. In June 1995, Hubbard and L.A. Raiders owner Al Davis shook hands on a deal that would have brought the pro football team and a brand-new stadium to Hollywood Park's grounds. An excited Hubbard told his staff to make arrangements for a news conference to announce the agreement. But Davis, true to form, insisted on more concessions, and the deal collapsed. Not long after Davis bailed out, Everett returned to the legal warpath, suing for corporate records she hoped would show that Hubbard and other Hollypark officials were "engaged in self-dealing, mismanagement, and waste of corporate assets"--including Hollywood Park's payment of $139,000 a year to Hubbard to cover operating costs of a jet that he personally owned. There was still more bad news last spring. First, Hollywood Park announced it would write off $11 million of its investment in Sunflower Racing, operator of the Woodlands track--a move that essentially declared the money an uncollectable debt. Then the Woodlands itself filed for bankruptcy, further embittering Kansas horse owners, who had once looked to Hubbard as the savior of their sport. As Albert Becker talks in the kitchen of his spacious farmhouse, his horses can be seen outside, grazing peacefully on the rolling prairie fields of Wyandotte County, Kansas. A tall, jowly man, Becker is a past president of the American Quarter Horse Association. He's 77 now, frail and recovering from pneumonia. Tubes run from his nostrils to an oxygen tank in an adjoining room. But he can summon plenty of passion when he discusses Hubbard and the Woodlands, situated only a few miles to the north. "There's so much bitterness," he fumes. "They should get rid of the whole goddamn thing and start over. They should get somebody else in there to run it." It was Becker who, in 1986, led Kansas horse owners in the successful campaign to win voter approval for horseracing. Two years later, the Kansas Racing Commission began reviewing proposals for the first track license. It was a process in which many Kansans were keenly interested, since a successful track would benefit not only horse breeders but the state's farm-products industry that supplied them. Among the bidders for the license was Sunflower Racing, a company in which Hubbard had a 60-percent stake. The other 40 percent belonged to his friend Richard Boushka, a former Olympic basketball star who'd made a fortune in oil and gas exploration. Sunflower's $56-million proposal was easily the most ambitious, envisioning two separate tracks on the same property just outside Kansas City, Kansas--one for horses, the other for greyhounds. By contrast, a group led by Kansas City dentist David Schoenstadt proposed building a dog track inside a horse track for half as much as the Hubbard design. Horse owners threw their support behind Schoenstadt. They claimed the Hubbard tracks were too costly--"two Taj Mahals," as Becker puts it--and poorly located. Many patrons, they noted, would have to drive through high-crime areas of Kansas City to get there. Horse owners were also concerned about some of Sunflower's connections. For one thing, state attorney general Robert Stephan, whose agency conducted background investigations of track applicants, was a long-time associate of Hubbard. Indeed, when Stephan settled a sexual harassment lawsuit against himself in 1985, Hubbard contributed $10,000 of the $25,000 settlement, according to court documents. Nevertheless, the racing commission endorsed Sunflower's bid in July 1988. Schoenstadt immediately questioned the impartiality of the review process in an appeal to the Kansas Supreme Court. He also suggested that Sunflower--like Newco 18 years earlier--was too close to Delaware North. For instance, the principal lender on the Sunflower tracks was Southeast Bank of Miami, in which Delaware North had a large stake. The appeal, however, was denied. Embroiled in controversy, the Woodlands opened for dog racing in September 1989 and for horseracing the following summer. The crowds were huge, and the amiable Hubbard was there to help with customer relations. "I can remember him fielding complaints and working with fans on how to smooth things out," says Bruce Rimbo, the Woodlands' president. But the hoopla soon faded. The horse track lost $1.75 million its first year, and the average bet at both tracks declined 14 percent between 1990 and 1991. But Sunflower didn't have to go far for a bailout. In November 1993, Hollywood Park Inc. agreed to acquire the Kansas company, buying out Hubbard and Boushka for $20 million in stock and cash. Understandably, some shareholders wondered if the deal might be better for Hubbard and Boushka than for Hollywood Park Inc. In their 1994 class-action suit, investors alleged that the purchase was not "an arms-length transaction, but rather was an opportunity for defendant Hubbard to divest himself of his interest in Sunflower Racing." Hubbard, however, defends the deal. "We had offers from other gaming companies to buy the Woodlands," he says. "But all of the investment banking companies said it should be part of Hollywood Park. Everybody thought it was a great deal at the time because we thought slot-machine gaming was going to come to Kansas." But, as Hubbard admits, that bet "didn't turn out," since the Kansas legislature has yet to approve slots. The Woodlands today evokes a business on its last legs. It looks like a huge ship becalmed in a sea of grassland. There's no other commercial development, not even a fast-food restaurant, within two miles. On a recent visit, a couple of hundred vehicles dotted the vast parking lots. Inside the dog track, a smattering of old folks and yuppies watched the races. The horse track, where race days have declined sharply since 1990, was empty, weeds growing between the grandstand's paving stones. Hubbard blames the 1994 advent of riverboat gambling in nearby Kansas City, Missouri, for casting a possibly fatal shadow over the Woodlands. Unless the Kansas legislature allows the track to introduce slots or other forms of gaming, it won't survive, he contends. Hubbard aides launched an intensive lobbying effort in 1995, bombarding key lawmakers with mail and busing gambling supporters to the state capital in Topeka. He plans another major lobbying push this year. But critics say Hubbard has only himself to blame for the Woodlands debacle. State Sen. Lana Oleen, a Republican who chairs the Senate committee on gaming, says experts who studied the competing track proposals all advised against building two facilities. But she says the attitude of Woodlands managers was, This is our money, we'll do what we want with it. She also faults their heavy-handed lobbying style. "They have come into my town and demanded to go on the radio," she complains. "It has become very personal against me because of the position I've taken on not supporting slots." Becker also holds Hubbard responsible. "He overbuilt because of greed," says the horse breeder. "He dug his own hole. Then he comes back and wants the legislature to bail him out." Far from the thundering hoofs and cheering fans, in the empty northwest corner of Hollypark's vast grounds, sits a pile of cement. Next to it rises a billboard bearing an optimistic prediction: Future Site of Hollywood Park Stadium. Twenty months after the Raiders fiasco, Hubbard's plan for a 65,000-seat football stadium is again on hold while L.A. city officials try to coax the NFL into sending a team to play at a remodeled Coliseum. "The Coliseum deal is the number one deal right now," Hubbard concedes. But he's clearly biding his time rather than throwing in his towel. Ever the cagey country boy, Hubbard diplomatically stepped aside when L.A. Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas and other civic power brokers began pushing for the Coliseum scheme, which the NFL has viewed with deep skepticism. Hubbard even publicly pledged his support of the Coliseum group. But if their plan collapses, Hubbard could emerge as the white knight--with a pocketful of political IOUs from L.A. officials he once backed. "If something happens to the Coliseum deal and it turns out not to be what the NFL wants , then Hollywood Park is still here," he says. "We still have our ground, still have the permits." Hubbard is more hopeful about luring a new arena for pro basketball and hockey, even though a site near downtown L.A. is the favorite of the moment. Kings owners Ed Roski and Philip Anschutz want to build a $200-million arena adjacent to the Convention Center, and the L.A. City Council has thrown its backing behind the proposal. But numerous hurdles remain, and Roski and Anschutz have repeatedly stressed they are also negotiating with Inglewood and plan to compare the two cities' offers before they make a final decision where to build. "The big question is: Can L.A. city officials do it?" says Hubbard. "I think that's the question that the developers are looking at. They know it can get done in Inglewood; they're not sure it can get done downtown." But any such development still appears a long way off. Meantime, Hubbard has his money on another horse--his plan to turn Hollywood Park Inc. into a fully integrated gambling powerhouse. Last March Hubbard paid $188 million to acquire Nevada-based Boomtown Inc., which operates Vegas-style casinos in Reno, New Orleans, and Biloxi, Mississippi. To him, the deal was a logical extension of the horseracing business. "We've been a gaming company for 55 years, but it's been strictly horseracing, which is what was legal here," he says. "Now we're expanding into the other forms of legal gaming, and I would think we'll be doing more of that." In addition, Hollywood Park and two partners recently opened a card casino in Compton, the Radisson Crystal Park Hotel & Casino. But like the Hollypark casino, only cards can be played at Crystal Park. Hubbard's bet that state lawmakers would expand non-Indian gaming, allowing his racetracks to add slots and other forms of gambling, has failed not only in Kansas but in Arizona, where Hollywood Park bought the Turf Paradise track outside Phoenix for $34 million in 1994. Moreover, Hubbard faces the potential ordeal of licensing hearings in the states where he is applying to operate the Boomtown casinos. Investigators can be expected to examine his career going back at least to the Newco imbroglio. When he applied for a Texas racing license in 1992, he was interrogated for so long by state regulators that his lawyer finally griped, "You have been harassing this man for something like eight hours." (Hubbard's group was denied a license, and he has since transferred his interest to developers who are building a track near Fort Worth.) Any further setbacks could seriously strain investor patience, setting up the same sort of situation that led to the revolt against Everett. Since she got the corporate records she wanted, Everett has not pursued any legal action. But another high-profile shareholder, John Brunetti, who runs the famed Hialeah racetrack near Miami, has openly attacked Hubbard, calling him a corporate dictator and questioning his business plans. When he resigned from Hollypark's board in October, Brunetti charged that Hubbard "completely dominates the board of directors, and he will allow no differences of his opinions or initiatives." Brunetti added in a New Times interview that Hubbard's corporate strategy amounts to "a lot of wasted assets." Brunetti characterizes the Boomtown casinos as "glorified RV campsites" and notes that Hollywood Park hasn't paid cash dividends to shareholders since Hubbard took over. Moreover, says Brunetti, the company's net worth has declined by some two-thirds since 1993. And although many horse owners embraced Hubbard as a hero when he sought to topple Everett, some now see him as just a different brand of poison. An anonymous horse fancier recently wrote in The Blood-Horse, a racing trade magazine, that Hubbard's changes have reduced the legendary track to "a dismaying, disheartening, dysfunctional, unfocused honky-tonk. "Maybe it was the 47 (47!) races in the program that you couldn't have kept track of with a hand-held computer, an abacus, or a Ouija board," the writer said. "Maybe it was the fact that you stand in line behind a guy who has wandered away from the card table just long enough to ask a mutuel clerk how he bets all these different races, while you are waiting in line and it's post time. Or maybe it's the numbing procession of dancers, second-rate bands, and kids with giant slingshots hurling T-shirts into the crowd." "If this is someone's vision of the future of racing, it doesn't, won't, can't work," the writer continued. "The little minds behind Hollywood Park have thought little thoughts and built a pale imitation of an ersatz Vegas...and denigrated the racing structure to accomplish this little. Mr. Hubbard has made changes. No doubt about that. It reminds you a little bit of the rationalization that came out of Vietnam: 'We had to destroy the village in order to save it.'"