Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Officials to meet about entries
ARCADIA, Calif. – With the cancellation of racing at Santa Anita on Thursday because of insufficient entries, track and racing officials plan to meet in an effort to avoid a similar circumstance through the end of the spring-summer meeting on July 4.
The track announced last Sunday that there would be no racing Thursday because there were not sufficient runners for eight-race programs on Thursday and Friday. Instead, there will be nine races on Friday only.
Track senior vice president Joe Morris said Wednesday that the field size situation is a concern.
“The entries are lighter than I would have liked,” he said. “We’ve got to get a conversation started.
“I am worried about that. I didn’t expect that to happen.”
Morris said there are approximately 2,800 Thoroughbreds in training in Southern California that race at Santa Anita – about 1,750 at Santa Anita, 750 at Los Alamitos, and 360 at the San Luis Rey Downs training center in San Diego County.
Through Sunday, after seven days of the spring-summer meeting, fields had averaged 7.34 runner per race, slightly less than the average of 7.59 runners at the winter-spring meeting, which ran from Dec. 26 to April 9 and was plagued by wet weather in the winter.
The first two Saturdays of the spring-summer meeting had 10-race programs, and Morris said he would prefer to continue carding 10 races on Saturdays if there are sufficient entries. He said revenue from the 10th race, run at a time when Santa Anita is the most prominent track in the nation, makes the additional race worthwhile.
“We’ll look at it draw by draw,” he said. “That’s our sweet spot. The handle is $1.1 [million] to $1.2 million.”
Cancellations caused by a lack of entries are rare at Santa Anita. The track did not run the final three Wednesdays of its 2010-11 spring-summer meeting because of insufficient entries. During that season, Santa Anita ran four days per week in January and February before adding Wednesdays for part of March.
Currently, racing is held four days on most weeks – from Thursday through Sunday.
It Tiz Well skipping Ky. Oaks
It Tiz Well, who finished third in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Oaks on April 8, will remain in California this spring and will not start in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs on May 5, trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said.
“We’ll wait for a race here,” he said.
Owned by Tom and Debby Stull, It Tiz Well has won 3 of 6 starts and earned $274,840. It Tiz Well won the Grade 3 Honeybee Stakes at Oaklawn Park on March 11 and was beaten 14 lengths by Paradise Woods in the Santa Anita Oaks at 1 1/16 miles.
Paradise Woods and Abel Tasman, second in the Santa Anita Oaks, are two leading contenders for the Kentucky Oaks at 1 1/8 miles.
It Tiz Well will be considered for the $75,000 Angels Flight Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at seven furlongs May 14, although Hollendorfer said the Grade 2 Summertime Oaks on June 17 is the main goal. The $200,000 Summertime Oaks is run at 1 1/16 miles.
American Cleopatra, a full sister to 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, worked six furlongs in 1:12.20 on Wednesday and is expected to have her 2017 debut in the Angels Flight.
Trained by Bob Baffert for Zayat Stables, American Cleopatra has not raced since finishing eighth in the Grade 1 Chandelier Stakes for 2-yearold fillies last October. American Cleopatra won her debut last July at Del Mar and was second in the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante last September.
In other works Wednesday, Hillhouse High, winner of the Grade 2 Royal Heroine Stakes on April 8, worked five furlongs in 1:00.60.
Geolocating to boost purses
Regulations allowing racetracks to identify wagers placed ontrack through account wagering platforms is expected to enhance purses, but the impact will not be known for several months, according to a forum conducted by the Thoroughbred Owners of California last Saturday.
Some ontrack customers frequently bet online through mobile devices, such as telephones, laptops, and tablets, instead of through tote machines. For years, track and racing officials have looked on in frustration as those bets were logged as offtrack wagers through account-wagering systems and not recognized as ontrack bets, which provide significantly greater revenue for tracks and horsemen.
Recent action by the California Horse Racing Board will lead to a new distribution of revenue in favor of racetracks, through commissions, and horsemen, through purses, on bets placed at racetracks through mobile devices. The locations of those devices can be tracked to identify whether the customer is on racetrack grounds.
TOC officials said the effect on purses may take months to determine.
“We’ll be gathering data on who is wagering and have a more comprehensive report by the end of the year,” TOC executive director Mary Forney said at the forum.
Account wagering began in California in 2002 and has been a source of growth in handle at a time when ontrack and satellite locations have seen a sharp decline.