Santa Anita to boost overnight purses beginning June 1

ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita will enact a 10 percent purse increase for overnight races effective June 1 for the final 15 racing days of the spring-summer meeting, the track announced in a statement on Friday.

The increase will not affect stakes purses. The spring-summer meeting concludes on June 24.

Tim Ritvo, the chief operating officer of The Stronach Group, the track’s parent company, said on Friday afternoon that larger field sizes in recent months have led to a $70 million increase in total all-sources handle since Dec. 26 compared to the early months of 2017.

Specifically, Ritvo cited a newly created 50-cent late pick five bet has added $25 million to all-sources handle.

The purse increase comes a year after Santa Anita canceled four days of racing at its 2017 spring-summer meeting because of a lack of available horses. This year, there have been no such cancellations.

“There is a bit of a difference from last year,” Ritvo said.

Through Friday, the spring-summer meeting that began April 13 had averaged 7.59 runners per race compared with 7.55 runners per race during a similar time period last year.

The winter-spring meeting from Dec. 26 to April 8 averaged 8.01 runners per race, compared to 7.59 runners per races at the 2016-17 winter-spring meeting.

The track has had better weather since Christmas than in the early months of 2017.

This year, Santa Anita has added races to some programs when runners were available. For example, the May 19 program, which coincided with the simulcast of the Preakness Stakes from Pimlico, had 12 races compared to 11 on the corresponding day in 2017.

The May 19 program had all-sources handle of $20,030,222, an increase of 26 percent over the corresponding day in 2017, the track said in its statement.

Ritvo said more races are possible in the future.

“I think we have room for improvement,” he said.

The announcement of the purse increase comes after discussions with officials from the Thoroughbred Owners of California about how to distribute the additional revenue generated from handle.

In the past, the rare purse increase at a California track has resulted in a retroactive payment to the start of a meeting. The purse increase announced Friday will be paid “only going forward,” according to Nick Alexander, the chairman of the TOC, the state’s official representative of Thoroughbred horsemen.

“It’s very positive,” Alexander said. “It shows it’s been a successful meeting – more races and good fields.

“This is a way of rewarding horsemen.”

Alexander said the purse pool has been strong enough to erase a deficit accrued from the 2017 autumn meeting.