Wet weather has caused more cancellations than racing days in the opening weeks of the current Santa Anita winter-spring meeting. That is about to change. The forecast in Southern California in the next week is for fine weather, just in time for a four-day week of racing beginning Thursday. A five-day racing week is scheduled from Jan. 15-19. The Thursdays of those weeks are replacement days for recent cancellations. “We’re looking forward to getting back into some racing,” track general manager Nate Newby said Monday. Through Sunday, there have been six days lost to wet conditions and three days of racing conducted. Sunday was originally supposed to have been the seventh day of racing of the season. Welcome to the rainy season in Southern California, but this year it is actually raining, and often. The track sustained approximately 10 inches of rain in a 14-day period ending Saturday, according to the National Weather Service. :: Santa Anita Classic Meet! Get DRF Past Performances, Clocker Reports, and more. Last winter, the track lost three days of racing in early January because of devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles area. Three replacement days were added later to the calendar. No racing days were lost to wet conditions in the 2024-25 season in an overall dry period in Southern California. In recent years, Santa Anita has dealt with rain-related cancellations, just not so many days in a concentrated period as in recent weeks. Racing was canceled Dec. 26-27 and Dec. 31 as well as Jan. 1 and Saturday and Sunday last weekend. Races were held Dec. 28 and Dec. 30 and last Friday. In the winter of 2023-24, there were six days of racing canceled because of rain. Three replacement days were added to the schedule. At the 2022-23 winter-spring meeting, the track canceled eight days of racing from early January to late March because of weather conditions and were able to make up four days of racing. California tracks are discouraged from racing in severe weather conditions, following inclement weather policies enacted by the California Horse Racing Board in late 2020. Newby said additional days may be added to the scheduled in coming months, depending on weather conditions and availability of horses. “I’d love to add another day or two in February or March,” Newby said. “The goal is to get these racing days back. We’ll evaluate how quickly we can add days.” To accommodate the lost racing days, the track has increased the number of races per day. There are nine races on Thursday and 10 on Friday. Most weekdays have eight races. The cancellations also have affected training. From Jan. 1 through Monday, the main track was closed for training on four mornings. Through Monday, the last recorded workouts on the main track were held Dec. 31. On Jan. 5, horses were permitted to be jogged on the main track, but no workouts were allowed. Meanwhile, the synthetic training track on the infield has seen ample activity. The training track surface, slightly more than six furlongs in circumference, was switched from dirt to a Tapeta Footings synthetic surface in the winter of 2023-24 at a cost of more than $8 million with the intent of allowing full-scale training during inclement weather. The new surface was first used for training in March 2024. For some trainers, the training track is an option for workouts. “I make a lot of coin-flip decisions,” trainer Andy Mathis said. “Some horses I work on the training track handle it well. Some, I’m waiting until it opens on the dirt. “They’re all different. Some work good and some are not the same horse on it. You don’t want to work a horse that struggles on the surface. Nothing good will happen. “It’s an individual decision.” On Sunday, there were 174 recorded workouts on the training track, including the 3-year-old filly Super Corredora who won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Del Mar in October. Super Corredora worked five furlongs in 59.80 seconds and is scheduled to have her first start of the year in the $100,000 Las Virgenes Stakes on Feb. 1. There were more than 195 recorded works Monday, including 2024 stakes winner On the Whim; and Cruise Home, a candidate for the $175,000 California Cup Derby on Jan. 17 for trainer Dean Pederson. “I hardly ever work on it,” Pederson said. “I worked one yesterday and four today out of necessity.” “You do the best you can and you have to be a little patient. We were able to breeze a bunch today. They’re all close” to a race. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.