Longshot bid aims to save famed Hialeah Park

Once the grande dame of horse racing, Hialeah Park sags like a withered beauty queen, the contours of its Old World architecture and graceful landscape fading amid the decay. When it closed in May 2001, just 3,280 souls showed up to watch the final race.

Alex Fuentes, a mortgage broker who is leading a crusade to preserve the 1925 landmark, sees a future even sadder than the track's recent past.

Almost 3,800 condos and a million square feet of shopping mall are proposed for the ground where Seabiscuit, Citation and Seattle Slew once galloped to the cheers of presidents, prime ministers and a parade of the rich and famous.

Unless track owner John J. Brunetti can resurrect racing, the developer and horse breeder says he has no choice but to turn much of the 200-plus acres he bought in 1977 into the new "hub" of Hialeah.

--> The romantic in me hopes that the Park will be saved and restored. If it were up to me, I'd fix it up nice and make it a pedestrian park. Charge a small fee for maintenance and have people walk the grounds, maybe plant some greenery, a garden. It'd be a shame for such a grand old place to be brought down for another strip mall. But the realist in me understands that something so precious is lost on the city of Hialeah.

(More at Sun Sentinel)

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