Still in the Race

For the first time in almost nine years, Hialeah Park is hosting live horse racing, and John Brunetti, the track’s 79-year-old owner, is in an expansive mood. “There’s going to be a casino at the north end of the grandstand,” he tells a visitor, “and eventually a hotel, retail establishments, and restaurants on the westerly 100 acres.”

Even if all goes well, the plans won’t materialize for several years; but the possibility still feels like a victory after what Brunetti and Hialeah Park have endured. One of America’s most storied race tracks, Hialeah had gone almost a decade without live horse racing before this season began. It closed in 2001 after falling victim to what Brunetti calls unfair competition from rival tracks Gulfstream Park and Calder Race Course. Unlike Hialeah, which is owned exclusively by Brunetti, those two tracks are subsidiaries of large corporations—Magna Entertainment and Churchill Downs, respectively—and, in Brunetti’s opinion, they were allowed to unfairly gang up on him.

Beginning in 2002, the state of Florida allowed Gulfstream and Calder to schedule back-to-back meets; January to April for Gulfstream, May to December for Calder. Unable to compete head-to-head with the better-financed tracks, Brunetti cancelled Hialeah’s 2002 and 2003 racing seasons. The state responded by pulling Hialeah’s racing permit.

Brunetti sued the state, but was unsuccessful. He pinned his hopes on a 2004 statewide referendum on whether to allow slot-machine gaming in pari-mutuels, but Hialeah once again found itself on the outside looking in. The referendum passed and voters in Broward and Miami-Dade approved the measure in countywide elections. But, “The initiative stipulated that you had to run meets in the two years prior to the referendum,” Brunetti explains. “Hialeah was excluded.” Gulfstream and Calder, meanwhile, took advantage of the measure to introduce casinos.

By 2007, Brunetti was toying with the idea of putting a residential development on the decaying 220-acre property, but was met by a “cool reception” from Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina. So in 2008 Brunetti decided to make another try with the state legislature. “We engaged some top-notch lobbyists and pushed and cajoled,” he says. As a result, Hialeah was included in the state’s proposed gambling compact with the Seminole Tribe. Under the agreement—which is yet to be ratified—Hialeah would be able to install slot machines, opening the door for the large-scale revival Brunetti envisions.

To participate in the plan Brunetti still needed to make Hialeah a functioning pari-mutuel, and that meant horse racing. With Thoroughbred racing out of reach, he opted instead for Quarter Horses, a breed whose optimal racing distance, as the name would imply, is a quarter mile. It’s the Sport of Kings reduced to a drag race, but as Brunetti likes to say, it’s “a means to an end.” By hosting a 40-day meet from November 28 to February 3, Brunetti hopes he has satisfied the state’s requirement. The future, he says, depends on Hialeah qualifying for expanded gaming options.

Brunetti talks a lot about the future these days, but in many ways it’s the past that exerts the strongest hold on him. A New Jersey native, he first came to Hialeah Park as a University of Miami undergrad in the early 1950s. Hialeah, built 20 years earlier, was in its golden age, and Brunetti fell in love with the place—the palm-lined entrance, the ivy-covered clubhouse in the style of a French château, the manmade lake stocked with pink flamingos imported from Cuba.

It was a magnet for the rich and famous in those days—photographs of Joseph Kennedy accompanying his daughter-in-law Jackie to the races and of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill strolling the grounds still adorn the clubhouse walls.

In its heyday, 15,000 to 20,000 spectators a day would stream through the park’s turnstiles to watch legendary horses circle the track. If horse racing had a heaven, Hialeah Park was it. “Hialeah has a niche, the way other landmarks in this country do,” says Brunetti. “It’s like the Grand Canyon, the cliffs of the Hudson, Niagara Falls.”

When he bought the racetrack in 1977, however, it was to save it from the wrecking ball. By then, horse racing had begun its inexorable decline as a spectator sport, and Hialeah had suffered disproportionately.

Brunetti was the one who kept it going. “He loves being the owner of Hialeah Park,” says the city’s former mayor, Raul Martínez, a close friend. “It’s like he says, ‘Anybody can have $40 or $50 million, but only one guy can own Hialeah Park.’ ”

The honor hasn’t come cheap for Brunetti. Reopening the park required about $8 million in renovations. Then there’s the daily prize money—$100,000 per day for 40 days—that Brunetti also put up. Think of it as a $12 million bet.

State Representative Steve Bovo, who once worked as the track’s marketing director, believes it’s one that will pay off. “I think we’ll leave Tallahassee this year with a pari-mutuel bill,” he says. “And I believe Hialeah Park will walk away with slot machines, a poker room, Quarter-Horse racing and Thoroughbred racing; all the tools it needs to compete.”

For Mayor Robaina, the economic impact of a revitalized Hialeah Park could be enormous, creating as many as 8,000 jobs. For now, all that matters to Brunetti is that Hialeah Park is still kicking. And so is he. “If I walk away, it’s going to be my decision; I don’t like to get pushed out,” he says.

Beneath the bluster, there’s something far more powerful at work. “For me, [Hialeah] is one of a kind,” Brunetti says. “Sure, I’ve had times when I’ve said ‘Enough is enough,’ but, after you make enough money to live, you need something else in your life. For me, it’s Hialeah Park. I’m going to continue this battle as long as I’m able.”