HOLLYWOOD PARK HEADS FOR STRETCH; INGLEWOOD SITE IS AREA'S BEST BET FOR NFL FACILITY.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

What do you see less often than a one-horse race? A three-horse dead heat. What do you see less often than a three-horse dead heat?

Pro football in Los Angeles, we're afraid.

Hollywood Park had the first two last Sunday afternoon and should have the third on Sunday afternoons early in the next decade, if any place around here is going to have the NFL.

Hollywood Park has the land - on the northwest corner of the racetrack and casino parking lot in Inglewood - to combine a state-of-the-art stadium with a sports theme park and a practice facility.

It has had an environmental impact report on file since 1995, when its promise to build a stadium nearly kept the Raiders from moving back to Oakland.

It has enjoyed the cooperation of the Inglewood city government, which is eager to keep major-league sports in town after the Lakers and Kings move from the Forum to the planned arena in downtown Los Angeles.

All of those advantages make Hollywood Park, not the Coliseum or a slice of the Dodger Stadium property, the place to put a Los Angeles expansion team at the same time as Cleveland is awarded its promised expansion team.

And now it has John McKay, who is son of the former USC and Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach and has an NFL background in his own right, and Leigh Steinberg, one of the sport's top player agents, to ride the rambunctious horse named Hollywood Park through the unfamiliar curves of league politics.

The NFL's promise to return football to Cleveland in 1999 ``represents a logical window of opportunity to have a second expansion team,'' said Steinberg, who is helping to put together a potential team-ownership group while McKay is selling the league on the site. ``If that window is missed, it could be years before we get a football team in Los Angeles.

``The advantages of Hollywood Park are fairly dramatic as the logical site in Southern California.''

So is the disadvantage - the fact Hollywood Park runs a racetrack, as well as the nation's first track-side cards casino. The NFL establishment would rather slow-dance with Saddam Hussein than be associated with gambling.

But something Steinberg said Tuesday on the telephone from Seattle could help that gambling problem go away. Steinberg indicated that R.D. Hubbard, chairman of the board and CEO of Hollywood Park, is not seeking an ownership interest in either the stadium or the team.

Last month, Hubbard was quoted saying he would be willing to play an ownership role if that would help. Since 1995, when Hubbard unveiled a $35,000 scale model of the proposed stadium with great fanfare, it had been assumed this would be his stadium.

Tuesday, Steinberg was asked if the gambling connection remained a stumbling block, and whether the NFL's concern in that regard might have been underscored by San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo's legal problems stemming from an application to operate a riverboat casino in Louisiana.

Steinberg answered, ``Yes,'' it would be a stumbling block. ``But Dee Hubbard is not asking to be an owner or to build a stadium. His role would be to sell the land.''

``It's been an evolving position on his part,'' Steinberg said.

Hubbard, who is a prominent racehorse owner as well as a track operator, is attending races in Hong Kong this week and was unavailable for comment. It's hard to gauge the significance of this evolution.

It's a good, educated guess, though, to say this would help the NFL accept Hollywood Park.

``Those are issues that would have to be dealt with,'' said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, but he noted the gambling issues were dealt with effectively before the Raiders backed out of their deal with Hollywood Park.

Sports betting remains illegal in California. Besides, the league's public

stand against gambling has always been an obvious bit of hypocrisy, given the TV ratings the point spreads help to generate.

But the attitudes of the league's executives and owners can be difficult to judge at any given time. Especially now, the NFL might be extra sensitive to the taint of gambling. Would DeBartolo have been forced to resign his 49ers position if he were awaiting indictment on charges related to operating, say, a flower shop, instead of a casino?

There's another way to look at the gambling connection: If the league wants to be sure its stadium and team owners are squeaky-clean, maybe it should deal exclusively with casino operators, who must be thoroughly vetted when they apply for state licenses. Hubbard has done business with DeBartolo but is not connected with the problems in Louisiana.

Aiello said a ``clear separation'' of the stadium and gambling operations would be required at Hollywood Park. But Steinberg promised the issue ``can successfully be addressed.''

Steinberg said he hopes the Hollywood Park people can present an ownership and financing proposal to league owners at their March meeting.

Wish them luck. It's OK to be a one-horse town, but not a no-football city, and Hollywood Park is our best bet.