Hubbard Gives Horse Racing a Good Name

By RANDY HARVEY

March 5, 1999 12 AM PT

Randall Dee Hubbard was born and raised in Smith Center, Kan., (Pop: 2,000), helped in his family’s ice house until he ventured out to work wheat fields from Texas to North Dakota, played a little junior college basketball, then took a steady job as a junior high coach and teacher in Towanda, Kan., for $3,200 a year.

Two years later, he became a salesman for a glass company in Wichita because the pay was better.

Was it ever!

Within 20 years, R.D. Hubbard, known as Dee to friends, had parlayed that $90-a-week job into the ownership a Fortune 500 company, AFG Industries Inc., which had annual revenues of about $700 million.

Billy M. Jones, a Wichita State professor who wrote a book about Hubbard, “Magic With Sand,” once said, “Hubbard’s most identifiable trait is his fearless tenacity. He is not afraid to work and learn, and, most important, he’s not afraid of risks.”

So, with that as the book on Hubbard, no one at Churchill Downs for last year’s Breeders’ Cup should have gasped when he entered his best horse, Gentlemen, in the day’s most prestigious race, the Classic. Yet, almost everyone did.

Above all else, Dee Hubbard, 63, is a good businessman. He has more than $50 million tied into the racing industry, including his investment in Hollywood Park, where he is the chairman and chief executive officer; his ownership of Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico and the Crystal Springs Farm in Lexington, Ky.; and the management of his own quarter horses and thoroughbreds, who have won close to $15 million over the years.

But, according to conventional wisdom, entering Gentlemen in the Classic wasn’t good horse sense.

The wiser decision would have been to pay a $200,000 supplemental fee into the $1-million Breeders’ Cup Mile, in which Gentlemen would have been a clear favorite. The Classic had a bigger purse--the biggest ever, in fact--at $4,689,920. But it also had a much steeper supplemental fee, $800,000, and Gentlemen figured to go off at no better than 6-1.

Although Gentlemen’s trainer, Richard Mandella, believed the odds of his horse winning were much better than that, not even he dared push for the Classic.

“I couldn’t get past the $800,000,” he said.

“It wasn’t his money,” Hubbard said this week, dryly, probably wishing it hadn’t been his, either.

He talked it over with his few partners, and the consensus was that Gentlemen, a 6-year-old Argentine bred with victories in the Hollywood Gold Cup and Pacific Classic, deserved one last chance before retiring to prove himself against the likes of Skip Away and Silver Charm.

It was a victory for the sport of horse racing over the horse racing business. If there was an Eclipse Award for brass, Hubbard would have won it hands down.

That would have been all he won. Gentlemen started bleeding early in the race, a malady he encountered during another race earlier in the year, and smartly shut down, finishing last.

I asked Hubbard the other day what he was thinking when Gentlemen finally crossed the finish line.

“I was thinking, ‘How dumb am I?”’ Hubbard said.

But Mandella said the only words Hubbard said to him were, “We gave it a shot.”

Now Hubbard is ready to give it another shot. The best horse in his barn this year is Puerto Madero, a 5-year-old Chilean bred who won the Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park in Florida six weeks ago with an upset of Silver Charm.

That was the first race in the National Thoroughbred Racing Assn.’s new series to determine the champion older horse. The second race is Saturday’s Santa Anita Handicap, and, despite his win in Florida, Puerto Madero is only the second favorite in the early line behind Silver Charm.

Hubbard acknowledged that the Big ‘Cap will be more challenging than the Donn because the field, which also includes Free House and Event of the Year, is deeper; Puerto Madero is carrying a couple more pounds and Silver Charm is carrying a couple less, and Silver Charm will not have to come from the far outside after drawing the No. 1 post position Thursday.

“Puerto Madero has the potential to develop into the top horse in the country,” Hubbard said. “Saturday is going to tell us an awful lot. But if he wins, there’s no question he’s No. 1.”

To still be there at the end of the year, however, Puerto Madero probably will have to at least run in the Breeders’ Cup Classic next winter at Churchill Downs. That means Hubbard and his partners would have to pony up another $800,000 in supplemental fees.

If his declaration shortly after last year’s Breeders’ Cup still holds, that decision has already been made.

“We’ll be back next year with Puerto Madero,” he said.

That is merely one example of Hubbard’s persistence.

He was left standing at the altar when Al Davis pulled out of a deal at the last minute for a new stadium at Hollywood Park in 1995, taking the Raiders to Oakland instead.

Guess who is courting Davis again.

If Davis prevails in his latest legal battles with the NFL and regains the L.A. territory, his first choice for the stadium probably would be Hollywood Park.

“If we could go back to the deal last time, we’d definitely entertain that,” Hubbard said. “I don’t have a problem with Al. I believe we could have gotten something done if the league hadn’t made it more complicated.”

It was clear from talking to Hubbard that the prospect of bringing the Raiders to Hollywood Park intrigues him. It was equally clear that he has more fun talking about his horses.

That’s easy to figure. I mean, who would you rather deal with--Al Davis and the other NFL owners or Gentlemen?

Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Big ‘Cap Draw

Post positions for Saturday’s $1-million Santa Anita Handicap with horse, jockey and opening line:

1. SILVER CHARM

(Stevens)

Line: 8-5

2. SIDON

(Delahoussaye)

Line: 15-1

3. FREE HOUSE