New protocols in place as Santa Anita is approved to resume racing

Racing is back at Santa Anita.

The track received approval from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health on Wednesday afternoon to resume racing Friday under strict protocols necessitated by the coronavirus outbreak.

The same government agency told Santa Anita to cease racing on March 27 when the track was deemed a nonessential business during the pandemic.

Shortly after Santa Anita was ordered closed for racing, track executives presented county officials with revised plans to resume racing with enhanced measures to reduce the number of people needed to conduct racing.

The track began making plans in late April to resume racing Friday. Training has continued since late March.

Entries for Friday were taken Tuesday. Wednesday, Santa Anita announced that it had received approval a few hours after the county health department announced in a press conference that outdoor activities, including tennis, archery, equestrian centers, community gardens, and bike paths could reopen under guidelines to reduce physical contact.

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In a statement announcing the resumption of racing, Aidan Butler, executive director of California racing for the track’s parent company, The Stronach Group, thanked the county health department and Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathyrn Barger for agreeing to reopen the track.

“We are very grateful for the open and continuous communication with both the Health Department and Supervisor Kathryn Barger’s office,” Butler said in a statement.

“Supervisor Barger, in particular, understood the importance of live racing to support thousands of individuals, and that we are able to accomplish it safely under these protocols.

“This has been a difficult time for all. Now we are focused on getting back to work in a safe and secure manner.”

Santa Anita will run a nine-race program beginning at 12:30 p.m. Pacific. Racing will continue largely on a Friday-through-Sunday basis through the scheduled conclusion of the winter-spring meeting on June 21.

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

Riders will have health checks on a daily basis when they arrive in the jockeys’ room, notably having their temperatures taken. 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 mare 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.

The Santa Anita Derby was scheduled for April 4.