American Pharoah leaving for Santa Anita

DEL MAR, Calif. – American Pharoah, the Triple Crown winner, was scheduled to head to Santa Anita early Thursday morning along with the remainder of trainer Bob Baffert’s horses that are still stabled here.

Baffert said he wanted to wait as long as possible to ship American Pharoah, owing to the excessive heat forecast for the area near Santa Anita this week. Temperatures are expected to hover around 100 degrees there all week.

Del Mar’s track is open for training only through Thursday, and all horses must be off the grounds by Friday. Del Mar is preparing to play host to an outdoor concert festival the weekend of Sept. 18-20 which includes the Killers, No Doubt, Zac Brown Band, Snoop Dogg, X, Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt, Grace Potter, Justin Townes Earle, and Trombone Shorty as well as comedians Joel McHale, Lewis Black, Tig Notaro, and Anthony Jeselnik.