Fabled racehorse buried beneath one of country's best known race tracks

Remains of historic racehorse found beneath closed track

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Here's an update on a story CBS News first told you about last December.

One of the country's best known race tracks was shutting down, but only after everything valuable had been removed.

But they didn't get "everything" - until now.

Hollywood Park attracted some of the world's most famous - people and horses CBS News

There was a time when Hollywood Park attracted some of the world's most famous, those on two legs and four.

The big crowds have come and gone and the track is now shut down for good, soon to be bulldozed. All that's left are memories, mostly fleeting, except for this.

With the track closed, Native Diver's bones are being unearthed CBS News

Underneath Hollywood Park, eight feet under to be exact, are the remains of one of the track's greatest racehorses.

Native Diver, who won the prestigious Hollywood Gold Cup three consecutive times in the 1960s, is buried here.

Native Diver was a gold cup winner CBS News
And over the weekend archaeology students from the University of Southern California are digging up the remains.

They've now uncovered part of the ribcage. Once the remains are fully exhumed, the plan is to rebury them at Del Mar, another race track, a hundred miles south of here.

Del Mar is rich in horse racing history. But so too, was Hollywood Park. So it seemed perfectly fitting at the time for Native Diver to rest among this hallowed ground forever.

It runs out forever didn't last that long.


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