Racing scrapped on Feb. 13 to stretch horse population

ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita will not race on Feb. 13 in an effort to boost field sizes in coming weeks, according to racing secretary Steve Lym.

The track was scheduled to race from Thursday, Feb. 13, through Monday, Feb. 17, that week, but will instead run Friday through Monday, which is Presidents Day.

This week, Santa Anita will run Friday through Sunday, followed by two Thursday through Sunday weeks. Santa Anita will race Friday-Sunday, Feb. 21-23, Lym said.

Santa Anita will run Thursday through Sunday for the last week of February and through March and April.

“If we fill strong, I’ll go with four days as much as I can,” Lym said earlier this week. “There are some things we’re going through. We’re trying to manage the horse population.”

The number of race-ready horses has declined in Southern California in the last year due to competition from tracks with higher purses, notably Oaklawn Park in Arkansas and Churchill Downs in Kentucky, and tougher medication rules and pre-race inspections required for starters following a series of equine fatalities at Santa Anita last winter and spring.

Last summer, the California Horse Racing Board ordered Santa Anita to eliminate 12 days of racing from its winter-spring meeting, which runs through June 21. The track has been granted flexibility to choose which days are eliminated for reasons such as poor weather or lack of horses, the racing board said at the time.

The track postponed opening day from its traditional launch on Dec. 26 to Dec. 28 because of extensive rain on Dec. 25. The Dec. 27 program was also canceled. The Feb. 13 program is the third day to be eliminated.

“We’re trying to manage our flex days,” Lym said.

Through Monday, the 13th day of the meeting, fields had averaged 7.72 runners in 116 races. During a similar period in the 2018-19 winter-spring meeting, there had been 18 racing days, with an average of 7.82 runners in 159 races.

There are eight races on Friday, with a maximum of 67 runners. Last Friday, 44 horses started in seven races, an average of 6.27 runners per race.

◗ The Grade 2 Palos Verdes Stakes at six furlongs on Saturday is the lone graded stakes at Santa Anita this weekend.

Candidates for the $200,000 Palos Verdes includes Flagstaff, who won the Damascus Stakes here in November, and Speed Pass, the sharp winner of an optional claimer at Los Alamitos in December.