Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
SANTA ANITA Seven stakes on rescheduled opener Saturday
ARCADIA, Calif. – The decision by Santa Anita management to postpone its opening day from Thursday until Saturday was met with approval by trainer Simon Callaghan, whose filly Bellafina will be the favorite in the Grade 1 La Brea, one of the five stakes moved back from Thursday to Saturday.
“I think it’s a good thing,” Callaghan said here Sunday morning. “Why run good horses on a bad track when you know you’ll have a good track two days later?”
Santa Anita announced the postponement last Saturday, when entries were to be taken for the Thursday card. A series of strong storms were forecast to pelt Southern California in the early and middle part of this week, which prompted the postponement, though the forecast for Thursday had improved significantly by Sunday morning.
“It was very important to make this call as early as possible for our horsemen, fans, and employees,” Aidan Butler, the acting executive director of California racing for The Stronach Group, which owns Santa Anita, said in a statement Saturday.
“It is very difficult to predict weather forecasts in Southern California more than 48 hours in advance,” Dennis Moore, who oversees the track surfaces, said in the release. “Right now, they have rain Monday through Thursday morning. But the models are continuing to change and when they do that, they are usually building up moisture.”
The new opening-day card was to be drawn Monday. The card will include all five stakes originally scheduled for Thursday, including the Grade 1 Malibu for 3-year-olds and the
La Brea for 3-year-old fillies, as well as the Grade 2 San Antonio for older runners, Grade 2 Mathis Brothers Mile for 3-year-olds on turf, and $75,000 Lady of Shamrock on turf.
The Grade 1 American Oaks and the Grade 3 Robert Frankel – both on turf – were already scheduled for the Saturday card, so the new opening-day card will have seven stakes. It will be an 11-race card, with first post at 11 a.m. Pacific.
The $75,000 Eddie Logan, scheduled for the Friday card that has now been abandoned, will be brought back as part of the Sunday card that already included the $75,000 Blue Norther, the racing office announced Saturday.
“With the rain in the forecast, it was extremely likely that the races would be off the turf Thursday,” Steve Lym, Santa Anita’s vice president and director of racing, said in the Saturday release. “Postponing opening day will allow for the high-quality turf racing synonymous with Santa Anita. We are planning on filling extra races throughout the opening week to give our horsemen the opportunity to run their horses.”
Opening day traditionally is one of the biggest days of the season for Santa Anita, coming as it does the day after Christmas. In addition to the top-class stakes racing, the track gives away a wall calendar that is popular with fans.
Last year’s announced opening-day crowd was 41,373, and the handle was an opening-day record of more than $20 million.
A little more than two months later, following a spike in fatalities that largely occurred during wet weather, Santa Anita was closed for much of the month of March, and subsequently enacted enhanced safely protocols. Earlier this month, at a monthly meeting of the California Horse Racing Board, Santa Anita was advised by CHRB commissioners to proceed with caution regarding racing in wet weather during this upcoming meet.
An eight-page paper was presented at the CHRB meeting dictating protocols on whether racing can be conducted in the event of hot weather, high winds, lightning, and rain. In the event of rain, no training will take place on a sealed racetrack, the document stated.
During the track’s winterspring meeting, which runs through June 21, Santa Anita has been ordered to eliminate 12 days of racing, one of the terms agreed upon between the racing board and the track as part of the license for the race meeting.
The racing board approved of not racing Thursday and Friday and waiting until Saturday to open.
“We on the board indicated our concern for safety when we provided Santa Anita 12 flex days in its upcoming meet,” the board’s chairman, Dr. Gregory Ferraro, said in a statement issued Saturday. “Those dark days will be determined by weather and safety conditions as the meet progresses. We are encouraged that Santa Anita, by canceling its first two days of racing, is placing the safety of horses and riders first.”