Overnight purses up, some stakes purses cut at Santa Anita

Overnight purses at Santa Anita will be increased, but some stakes will have their purses cut, according to the stakes schedule for the upcoming meet that was released Saturday along with a press release regarding the upgraded overnight purses.

Santa Anita’s main winter meeting is scheduled to begin Dec. 26 with a blockbuster card featuring six stakes, including three Grade 1 races – the Malibu, La Brea, and the American Oaks, each worth $300,000.

The two biggest races of the meet are the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby, to be held April 3, and the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap, set for March 6.

The Santa Anita Derby will be worth $750,000, down from the $1 million it was worth in 2019. This year’s purse was cut to $400,000 owing to its postponement of two months because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The Big ’Cap will be worth $400,000, a 33-percent cut from this year’s $600,000; this year’s race was run before the suspension of racing owing to the pandemic. The Big ’Cap has been impacted severely in recent years by outsized purses in races such as the Dubai World Cup and newer Saudi Cup.

The meet runs through June 20.

In recent years, strong purses at Oaklawn Park in particular have siphoned away both stakes runners and significant numbers of overnight runners. In an attempt to keep overnight horses on this circuit, purses for those races are being increased 10 percent, which will bring the average daily purse distribution at Santa Anita to $533,000, according to a press release. Maiden races, for instance, will be worth $61,000, the highest level in a decade.

“Building Santa Anita’s aggressive overnight purse schedule is a reflection of the confidence that we have in California racing even in the midst of a pandemic,” Craig Fravel, CEO of 1/ST Racing, Santa Anita’s Stronach Group-related parent company, said in the press release. “Nothing has been easy about this past year, so we are thankful to the horsemen who have continued to support our program on a daily basis. We’ve missed the fans who have been absent from our track since March 12th, but we are grateful to be able to bring them the consistent top-quality racing that has been synonymous with Santa Anita since 1934.”