Santa Anita delays start of fall meet until Sept. 25 due to wildfire

Santa Anita has postponed the start of its autumn meeting from Saturday to Sept. 25 because of a massive wildfire in the mountains near the racetrack, the track announced late Monday morning.

The wildfire began Sept. 6 and has grown to 33,000 acres with minimal containment.

“The current weather pattern has kept the smoke in the valley and the air quality is quite poor right now,” Aidan Butler, executive director of California racing for the track’s parent company, The Stronach Group, said in a statement.

“As excited as we are to welcome back live racing, we are first and foremost committed to safety. This is the responsible decision to make at this time so people can plan accordingly.”

The track was scheduled to race on Saturday and Sunday. Three stakes scheduled for the upcoming weekend will be postponed to the weekend of Sept. 25-27, according to racing secretary Steve Lym.

Lym said additional races will be added to the racing program through the end of the season on Oct. 25 to make up for the two lost racing dates. There will be 16 days of racing instead of the original schedule of 18 days.

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The Grade 3 Chillingworth Stakes for female sprinters was scheduled for Saturday and will be run Sept. 25. The Speakeasy Stakes for 2-year-old turf sprinters has been postponed from Saturday to Sept. 26, while the Tokyo City Cup has been postponed from Sunday to Sept. 27.

The wildfire caused the evacuation of approximately 350 residences in a neighborhood close to the mountains in Arcadia, Calif., where Santa Anita is located. The track itself is not threatened by the fires, which has caused widespread smoke, reduced visibility, and resulted in poor air quality in the Los Angeles area.

Aside from the evacuations, residents of nearby communities remained under an evacuation warning, the stage that leads to an evacuation order. Poor conditions are expected to be an issue until at least the middle of the week, a meteorologist told the Los Angeles Times.

There was no racing scheduled this past weekend. The track announced earlier this summer that it wanted to create a gap between the conclusion of the Del Mar summer meeting on Sept. 7 and the start of the autumn meeting.

In Northern California, Golden Gate Fields canceled racing from last Friday through Sunday because of poor air quality from by fires in that region, which are more severe than in Southern California.

Conditions were better in Orange County where Los Alamitos conducted its evening meeting of Quarter Horses and lower-level Thoroughbreds from Friday through Sunday.

The fire has affected the daily training of hundreds of horses stabled at Santa Anita. There were 33 workouts on Saturday and 36 on Sunday. A typical weekend would have 100 to 200 workouts. Some trainers gave their horses limited exercise such as jogging.

There were 73 workouts Monday, including fast works by top older horses Improbable and Maximum Security.

Improbable, winner of the Grade 1 Hollywood Gold Cup in June and the Grade 1 Whitney Stakes on Aug. 1 at Saratoga, worked five furlongs in 59.40 seconds. Maximum Security, the champion 3-year-old male of 2019 and winner of the Grade 1 Pacific Classic on Aug. 22 at Del Mar, worked six furlongs in 1:11.20.

Bob Baffert trains Improbable and Maximum Security, He said via text message that both 4-year-olds will start in the Grade 1 Awesome Again Stakes on Sept. 26 at Santa Anita. The winner of the $300,000 Awesome Again Stakes at 1 1/8 miles receives a fees-paid berth to the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 7 at Keeneland, although Improbable and Maximum Security secured berths with their wins in Grade 1 races in August.