Californian returns to Santa Anita schedule in 2020

Santa Anita has cut the purses of five stakes, including two graded stakes for 3-year-olds, increased the purses of three stakes, and scheduled 12 turf sprint stakes at 5 1/2 furlongs for its winter-spring meeting that begins on Dec. 26.

Santa Anita recently published the 94-race stakes schedule on its website. The meeting runs through June 21. One race has been reintroduced -- the Grade 2 Californian Stakes, a $200,000 race at 1 1/8 miles, will be run on April 18. The race was not held in 2019.

Two of the three graded stakes for 3-year-olds that are preps for the meeting’s richest race, the $1 million Santa Anita Derby on April 4, will be run for less prize money in 2020.

The Grade 3 Robert Lewis Stakes at 1 1/16 miles on Feb. 1 will be worth $100,000, a reduction of $50,000 from this year. The Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes at 1 1/16 miles for 3-year-olds on March 8 has been cut from its 2018 purse of $500,000 to $400,000. The San Felipe was not run in 2019.

The Grade 2 San Antonio Stakes at 1 1/16 miles for older horses, one of five stakes on the opening day program, will be worth $200,000, down from $300,000 in 2018. Two stakes on turf – the Grade 3 Robert Frankel Stakes for fillies and mares on Dec. 28 and the Grade 3 Providencia Stakes for 3-year-old fillies on April 4 – have been cut $50,000 each.

The purses of three stakes have been raised $100,000 each, to $200,000 – the Grade 2 La Canada Stakes for fillies and mares at 1 1/16 miles on Jan. 11, the Pasadena Stakes for 3-year-olds at a mile on turf on Feb. 29, and the Grade 2 Santa Ana Stakes for fillies and mares at 1 1/8 miles on turf on March 28.

A majority of the races will be at or near the same time as scheduled at the 2018-19 meeting, although the stakes calendar for that season underwent significant revisions last spring when 13 days of racing were canceled in March for the track to undergo renovation and inspection following a series of equine fatalities.

In 2020, two $200,000 races for California-bred 3-year-olds – the California Cup Derby at 1 1/16 miles and the California Cup Oaks for fillies at a mile on turf – have been moved from mid-February this year to Jan. 18 and will be part of a day of five stakes for statebreds.

The track will continue its policy of not running sprints on the hillside turf course after a two-horse spill led to one fatality in a graded stakes last March. For the upcoming meeting, 12 turf sprint stakes will be run at 5 1/2 furlongs on the main turf course. Several were run at about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course at the 2018-19 meeting.

At the recently concluded autumn meeting, turf sprints were run at distances of five furlongs and 5 1/2 furlongs on the main turf course.