Del Mar has another sensitive Santa Anita act to follow

Track is set to host a 15-day fall meeting on the heels of fatality in the Breeders’ Cup.

DEL MAR — From his seat beyond the finish line Saturday at Santa Anita, Josh Rubinstein was focused on the celebration in the seconds after Vino Rosso won the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

It was only when the president of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club turned his gaze to the left that he saw the ambulance on the track and the 4-year-old gelding, Mongolian Groom, in obvious distress.

“With an eighth of a mile to go, it had been an absolutely perfect weekend,” Rubinstein said. “Unfortunately, the horse took a bad step and things changed dramatically.”

Mongolian Groom later was euthanized because of a badly fractured left hind leg, and once again the horse racing industry was left to defend itself against those who seek to reform or banish the sport. It also put Del Mar officials in the uneasy position of again being the cleanup crew sweeping up after a hurricane.

Thirty horse deaths at Santa Anita in six months from December through June preceded Del Mar’s summer meeting, which was among the safest in the track’s history. Four horses died in training and none during racing.

Beginning Friday, Del Mar is set to host its 15-day fall meeting on the heels of the Breeders’ Cup death that followed six other equine fatalities during Santa Anita’s fall meet.

“I’m not sure that there could be any more pressure on us than the beginning of the summer meet,” Rubinstein said. “In a perfect world, we wanted nothing more than for Santa Anita to have an equally safe meet, and for the pressure to be turned down.”

Instead, it has been ratcheted up. On Monday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (DCalif.) said racing needed “to take a long, hard look at [its] future in this country and we need to do it before more horses needlessly die.”

A year after its 2018 summer meet was statistically the safest among major tracks in the country, Del Mar and the California Horse Racing Board took extensive measures to identify horses that were unfit to race. Among the moves were an increase in veterinary observers, changes to pain medication protocols and a five-member panel that reviewed all the records of every horse entered to race.

Nine of the meet’s 14 stakes races will be staged on the grass. Two of those will be Grade 1 events worth $300,000 each — the Hollywood Derby on Nov. 30 and Matriarch Stakes on Dec. 1.

The first weekend features the $75,000 Kathryn Crosby Stakes on Friday, the $75,000 Let it Ride Stakes on Saturday and the $100,000 Desi Arnaz Stakes on Sunday.