Horse Players Gear Up, Horse Company Bears Down

As longtime readers of FrontBurner might imagine, I’m pretty stoked that Lone Star Park starts its 2008 season of live racing in less than a week. Thursday night, to be exact. Magna Entertainment Corp., owner and operator of LSP and some of the country’s best tracks (Santa Anita, Pimplico Pimlico, Gulfstream, and more), is probably excited too. More like “hopeful.” MECA has fallen on some hard times of late. The NASDAQ stock is on the brink of being delisted, and confident company owner Frank Stronach’s plan to loan MECA money from another one of his interests faces an uphill battle. Full disclosure: I own a tiny bit of MECA stock, purchased as a means of self-rationalizing when I had a bad night at the track. How tiny? Right now, it’s worth a little more than enough to buy a $2 exacta box of three horses.

Oh. And also on the LSP tip: a belated congratulations to former Lone Star Park media relations rock star Darren Rogers. The immensely helpful and kind Rogers is now the Senior Director of Communications & Media Services at Churchill Downs.