New protocols in place as racing begins again

For nearly two months, there has been no racing at Santa Anita, only plenty of expectations for an opportunity to resume action amidst the coronavirus outbreak.

The wait may finally be over. The track is scheduled to run a nine-race program Friday, its first since March 22. Wednesday morning, Santa Anita officials were hoping to receive approval from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health to proceed with racing this weekend and through the scheduled conclusion of the winter-spring meeting on June 21.

The same county health department notified Santa Anita on March 27 that the track was a nonessential business during the pandemic. Training has been allowed to continue on a regular basis, but racing was halted.

If racing resumes Friday, Santa Anita will operate under some of the restrictions in place for five racing days from March 14-22 – no spectators will be permitted ontrack and a minimal number of employees will be in place to conduct racing.

Additional protocols will be put in place because of the pandemic.

Beginning Friday, jockeys will be part of a restricted group that will be quarantined in temporary housing on racetrack property. Wednesday, riders were undergoing mandatory testing for the coronavirus to be able to ride Friday.

Riders will have health checks on a daily basis when they arrive in the jockeys’ room. When they have completed their mounts each racing day, jockeys will be housed in RVs through the end of a racing week. The process will be renewed each Friday morning through the remainder of the season.

In addition, trainers and backstretch employees have been undergoing temperature checks each morning.

The measures are part of the new procedures that Santa Anita officials sent to county health officials last month in an effort to resume racing.

To an extent, even the horses are involved.

Beginning Friday, horses will be saddled in the receiving barn and not the saddling enclosure adjacent to the jockeys’ room. After being saddled, horses will be led to the walking ring, where they will be transferred from grooms employed by trainers to a group of grooms employed by the track.

After the race, grooms employed by Santa Anita will attend to the horses and walk them to the testing barn, or to an appointed area near the entrance to the stable area, where they will be met by grooms employed by trainers.

The procedure is designed to reduce the number of people in the walking ring and in the stands during races.

The resumption of racing has had a costly toll on owners who have had to continue payments to trainers for the care of the runners. When racing resumes, recovering some of that revenue will take longer.

The final six weeks of the winter-spring meeting will have lower purses for overnight races and some stakes. The track has overpaid purses this year, and conditions for the resumption of racing are not ideal for generating purse revenue.

The track retains a higher portion of dollars wagered ontrack than what is collected from account-wagering outlets, which will be the sole source of handle for the foreseeable future.

Maiden special weight races that were worth $55,000 earlier this year will be worth $50,000 for the rest of the season. From

Saturday through June 21, Santa Anita has scheduled 29 stakes. Nine of those races, including four Grade 1 races, will have lower purses than what was advertised earlier this year.

There will be two major days of racing – Monday, May 25, and Saturday, June 6. The May 25 program has two Grade 1 turf races worth $300,000 – the Shoemaker Mile and the Gamely Stakes for fillies and mares at 1 1/8 miles. The June 6 program has seven stakes, led by two Grade 1 races on the main track – the $400,000 Santa Anita Derby at 1 1/8 miles and the $300,000 Gold Cup at Santa Anita at 1 1/4 miles.

Dr. Dorr retired from racing

Age finally caught up to 7-year-old gelding Dr. Dorr, the Baffert family’s Grade 2 winner who has been retired from racing. Bob Baffert trained Dr. Dorr, a gelding owned by his wife, Jill Baffert, and named after their friend and orthopedic surgeon Dr. Lawrence Dorr.

Dr. Dorr won five races and $526,077 from 20 starts. For a brief period in spring 2018, the son of Lookin At Lucky ranked among the top handicap horses in Southern California. He won the Grade 2 Californian Stakes by more than seven lengths with a 108 Beyer Speed Figure and finished second in the Grade 1 Gold Cup.

“Not only did we have a lot of fun with him, he also was a joy” to train, Baffert said. “The last time I ran him, he didn’t run very well. The real Dr. Dorr said it looks like he is practicing social distancing.”

Dr. Dorr finished ninth in an allowance race April 19 at Oaklawn Park.

Dr. Dorr was shipped to New Vocations in Kentucky to be retrained for a second career.