Dr. Charles Henry Strub was a kind of entrepreneurial businessmen seemingly able to succeeding in any possible enterprise. He began out small as a baseball participant of modest means and as a dentist eager to embrace innovation. By the point of his dying, he had kickstarted the profession of baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, amassed a multimillion-dollar fortune, and reworked Santa Anita Park into one in all horse racing’s best levels.
Strub definitely didn’t let the grass develop beneath his toes. Born in 1884, he was at all times on the reducing fringe of his enterprise pursuits. Good advertising and marketing was a cornerstone of his insurance policies. As a dentist is San Francisco, he was fast to undertake the usage of anesthetics for extractions and incessantly positioned substantial commercials within the San Francisco Examiner selling his costs and the significance of excellent dental care.
However the sports activities world got here calling, and Strub answered the decision. Previously a minor league baseball participant, Strub reconnected to his roots in 1918 when he joined George Putnam and Charles Graham in buying the San Francisco Seals minor league baseball staff. Throughout the ensuing years, Strub performed an integral and profitable position in funneling up-and-coming gamers to main league groups.
“[Strub] demonstrated his Midas contact by promoting a succession of gamers to the majors for an estimated mixture of $1,000,000, in an period when most such offers had been within the peanut class,” wrote Al Wolf within the Los Angeles Occasions of March 29, 1958. Joe DiMaggio and “Lefty” Gomez had been simply two of the notable gamers bought by the San Francisco Seals throughout Strub’s tenure with the staff.
Tenacity was one other of Strub’s sturdy fits. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake worn out his dentistry follow, however he rebuilt. The 1929 inventory market crash that triggered the Nice Melancholy left Strub deeply in debt, however he quickly acquired again on his toes. Irrespective of how difficult the circumstances, Strub at all times appeared to bounce again stronger.
Whereas Strub was recovering from the inventory market crash, California legalized pari-mutuel wagering in 1933, paving the way in which for a return of horse racing on a significant scale. Although Strub had no earlier ties to the game, he sensed a chance and started exploring choices for constructing a racetrack. With high-profile assist from movie producer Hal Roach, singer/actor Bing Crosby, and businessman Leigh Battson, the Los Angeles Turf Membership emerged, setting up an attractive racing facility within the picturesque foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.
Santa Anita Park opened on Christmas Day 1934 with a crowd of 25,000 in attendance, and the inaugural meet was a rousing success. With Strub serving as vice chairman and normal supervisor, Santa Anita was at all times on the forefront of expertise and innovation in horse racing. Stopwatches for timing races? How archaic! Santa Anita put in the primary electrical timer in the USA. Putting judges trusting their eyes to find out the winner in photograph finishes? Perish the thought! Santa Anita positioned their belief in a newfangled photograph end digital camera.
In “The Historical past of Thoroughbred Racing in America,” William H. P. Robertson recounts the opening of Santa Anita on Dec. 25, 1934. “Constructed on the positioning of the outdated Fortunate Baldwin property, with a Spanish-American architectural motif that harmonized with its surrounding, the flamboyant new plant boasted a grandstand with a seating capability of 8,000 plus a clubhouse that might accommodate 450. … On Christmas Eve, a pinto pony might be seen operating forwards and backwards throughout the end line, to check the brand new digital camera above the press field, which was able to taking images that might be printed inside three minutes.”
The downhill turf course, constructed in 1953 and modeled after tracks in Europe, proved to be an immediate hit with horsemen and racing followers alike. Santa Anita was additionally among the many early adopters of the trendy beginning gate.
These improvements had been fashionable, however the true attraction was Santa Anita’s profitable purse construction. The monitor’s signature race, the Santa Anita Handicap, carried an annual purse of $100,000-added, the very best ever supplied for a race in the USA. Day by day common purse distribution routinely ranked among the many highest within the nation.
Suffice to say, Santa Anita thrived beneath Strub’s administration.
“On energetic days at Santa Anita … a person who might correctly be termed its presiding genius, sits in an workplace on the roof of the grandstand and appears out over one of many best racing domains in the USA,” penned the acclaimed author Damon Runyon in a column revealed within the Miami Herald of Nov. 17, 1941. “He’s Dr. Charles H. Strub … whose administration is admittedly the explanation for the astonishing success of the operation … [Santa Anita] handles round $900,000 per day in mutuels and has incessantly had million-dollar days. There has by no means been something prefer it in racing historical past.”
Runyon credited Strub with Santa Anita’s success in attracting main East Coast racing stables to race in California every winter, noting Strub made annual journeys to Saratoga in New York to advertise Santa Anita and drum up participation. Champion horses owned by Alfred Vanderbilt II and Calumet Farm had been quickly racing for main prizes on the Arcadia racetrack.
A coronary heart assault in 1945 prompted Strub to sluggish his tempo, however solely just a little. He remained concerned as govt vice chairman and witnessed the glory of racing’s post-war increase, when purses skyrocketed and the annual foal crop practically doubled in lower than a decade. The Santa Anita Derby turned a $100,000 occasion in 1946, making it one of many richest races for 3-year-olds anyplace within the nation. The Santa Anita Maturity for 4-year-olds was inaugurated with an similar purse in 1948, whereas the $100,000 San Juan Capistrano Handicap turned the nation’s richest grass race when switched to the brand new turf course in 1954.
In March 1958, after greater than twenty years on the helm of Santa Anita, Strub handed away from the consequences of a stroke. He was mourned as a game-changing racing govt who helped propel the game ahead with innovation and advertising and marketing. 5 years later, Santa Anita honored his reminiscence by renaming the Santa Anita Maturity in his honor. The Charles H. Strub Stakes – later simply the Strub Stakes – was held by 2014 and received by the years by such standout stars as Affirmed, Spectacular Bid, Alysheba, and Silver Attraction.
“The title of Dr. Charles Strub will stay eternally within the annals of Thoroughbred racing,” wrote Paul Zimmerman within the Los Angeles Occasions of March 29, 1958. “Actually, by the constructing and progressive operation of the Los Angeles Turf Membership, he was a mighty chief within the climb of racing from the horse-and-buggy class into a spot the place attendance has taken nationwide management over all different skilled sports activities.”
It’s straightforward to see why of us nicknamed him “Mr. Santa Anita.”
Enjoyable Info
- In line with Paul Zimmerman of the Los Angeles Occasions, Strub performed a pivotal position within the profession of Seabiscuit, the fan favourite who prevailed within the 1940 Santa Anita Handicap. “The nice physician had seen the previous promoting plater run in Detroit and urged the acquisition on his outdated pal [Charles Howard],” Zimmerman defined on March 29, 1958.
- Strub’s place because the face of racing at Santa Anita was such that the monitor was usually referred to by newspaper reporters as “Strubville.”
- Strub’s son, Robert Paul Strub, adopted in his father’s footsteps as a racing govt and promotor. He served as president of Santa Anita and obtained an Eclipse Award of Benefit in 1992.