He's not horsing around; R.D. Hubbard, Hollywood Park's new chief, is striving to get it back...

In Chairman R.D. Hubbard's office at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, there are a lot of women around, and just outside, there are a lot of horses.

It's not even 9 a.m. on a Friday and the workday is barely an hour old for Hubbard, who's taken a half dozen calls from people wanting to discuss various business deals.

In his outer office, Hubbard's 24-hour-a-day personal assistant (a thirtyish woman who lives and travels with Hubbard and his wife in his private jet) is fielding

On this day, Hubbard has "three or four major meetings scheduled and I want to try to do some Christmas shopping." Then maybe there will be time for a scotch or two, and maybe a round of golf if there is any daylight left.

But Hubbard is probably one of those people who basically works all the time, no matter what he's doing: Figuring and thinking, and talking to what he says are the most important people in the world -- his paying customers.

Hubbard has been around for awhile, accumulating a personal fortune believed to be at least $100 million. But it was not until 1991 that many people in Southern California first heard of him.

All of a sudden, his name appeared in the local headlines because he was trying to do what many thought was impossible: take away control of the venerable Hollywood Park race track from former board chairwoman Marjorie Everett. Some thought Hubbard was crazy -- attendance was falling at the 53-year-old park, fan support for horse racing was declining, the facility had lost some of its Hollywood glitter, and then there was the recession.

But after a nasty, name-calling proxy fight, Hubbard succeeded and in the process gained a reputation as a no-holds-barred takeover artist and vengeful wildcatter.

The battle began in 1990 when Hubbard's request for a seat on the board of directors was turned down by Everett. But a relentless Hubbard fought back and last February the board dismissed Everett and installed Hubbard.

The bitter feelings linger between Everett, who controlled the park for 18 years, and Hubbard. The two will probably never be invited to the same party.

Since he became chief executive officer of the park and chairman of Hollywood Park Inc., he has spent about $18 million sprucing up the place, and recently was trying to avert his first major crisis -- a possible strike by jockeys. Hubbard claims to have reversed the downward trend in attendance, with the daily gate last summer up 11 percent to more than 20,000 horse players. (Year-end results were unavailable, but in 1990 the company had revenues of $61.6 million compared to $71.4 million in 1989, and a loss of $3.2 million compared to $10.9 million in 1989.)

For a man of his wealth, with homes in Texas, New Mexico and California, Hubbard looks very ordinary. He likes to boast that he's a $2-a-bet guy so his "everyman" look may very well be by design.

He's fond of saying, "Who I am is what you see." In his plain Hollywood Park office with fake flowers in the lobby, Hubbard, a six-foot, 210 pounder, wears cowboy boots, colored jeans and an opened-collared shirt. But nearby hangs a business suit for meetings and at his call is a chauffeur.

At the airport is his jet to carry him to his three other race tracks, or his main office and primary residence in Fort Worth, Texas, where he is chairman of AFG Industries Inc., one of the biggest glass-manufacturing companies in North America.

Fourteen years ago, after careers as a school teacher, salesman and president of Satellite Corp., an auto glass replacement company, Hubbard and a group investors merged two faltering glass companies into AFG Industries.

Three years ago, Hubbard took AFG, a company with annual sales of more than $600 million, private in a $1.1 billion leveraged buyout.

Those who know Hubbard say he's a hard man to get close to, that he has a temper, is intense and has a good sense of humor. "He'll yell at you and can be very demanding but you always know where you stand with him," says Patricia Ruth-Martineau, who retired about a year ago to get married after being Hubbard's assistant for 14 years.

"I have the same kind of temperament, so sometimes we would stand there and yell at each other, but then he would forget about it. He doesn't hold onto things. He lets things go and he'll also listen to you and think about what you have to say," she says.

She says in addition to women, horses and scotch, Hubbard's passion is business.

Anyone in Hubbard's position, which also includes full or part ownership of 150 race horses, a Kentucky farm and 7,400 employees, has enemies who have undoubtedly tried to bring him down. But as an operator of race tracks in New Mexico, Kansas, Oregon, California and in the future maybe Texas, Hubbard is probably one of the most state-investigated men in the United States. So far, he has come up clean.

Talk to Hubbard and you get the feeling that he likes to test people, to challenge them. He'll respond to questions with one- or two-word answers. Or maybe he'll respond to a question by asking a question.

He plays his everyman role to the hilt, boasting about his unpretentious Midwestern background and how he can relate to the people who sit in the cheap seats and wager a couple of bucks on a long shot. "Go out and talk to the people in the stands and ask them about me or what I'm trying to do here," he says.

Hubbard was the youngest of eight children who were brought up in Smith Center, Kansas, a town of about 2,000 that is the geographic center of the United States.

He worked in his dad's ice house starting at the age of 11, played basketball in high school and then went to Butler County Community College in El Dorado, Kansas, where he received an associate degree and was on the basketball team.

After college he became a teacher and basketball coach at a junior high school in Towanda, Kansas, but after a year quit because his $3,600 annual salary wasn't enough to support his wife (his first of two) and two children (the first two of three).

When he was 23, he started in the glass business after answering an ad in a Wichita, Kansas, newspaper for a salesman.

Now, Hubbard sees himself as the savior of horse racing in this country, which has been hurting because of increased competition from other forms of legalized gambling, from state lotteries to riverboat gambling on the Mississippi.

"The industry has been suffering but I want to turn that around and it will turn around. It will be successful. It is something I can do, with the help of people in the stands. But we have to give them a good product," he says in one of his more expansive comments during an interview.

He says he has been successful for two reasons -- luck and good timing -- and that he fully expects those two factors will help him succeed at Hollywood Park. "In business, all you have to do is make the right decision 51 percent of the time to be successful," he says.

Those who know Hubbard say people often underestimate his intelligence but Hubbard himself certainly doesn't display any outward signs of a superhuman intellect. He says he mostly reads the sports and business pages of newspapers, and may complete a couple of non-fiction books a year.

He describes himself as a moderate Republican who has donated money to candidates ("I'm not going to go beyond that") but also says that he's really not interested in politics or Big Questions. He does become somewhat excited when talking about the charitable foundation he and his wife, Joan Dale, have established to award college scholarships, and about the building named after him at Wichita (Kansas) State University.

He also gets excited when talking about his mother, who is 85 and still lives in Smith Center.

"I think one of the reasons he likes women and women like him is that he has great respect for his mother and that comes through. I think she's his inspiration," says former aide Ruth-Martineau. But when prompted, she adds that women are also probably attracted to him because of his money.

"Every woman loves money," she says.

SNAPSHOT

Randall D. Hubbard

Native of: Smith Center, Kansas

Current residences: Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Ruidoso, N.M., Fort Worth, Texas

Age: 56

Education: A.A. from Butler County Community College, El Dorado, Kansas