Santa Anita offers 34 stakes during spring-summer meet

ARCADIA, Calif. - Santa Anita has scheduled 34 stakes, including five Grade 1 races, during its spring-summer meeting from May 5 to July 10, a season with a concentration of turf races from the opening week to mid-June.

Santa Anita will cease racing on the hillside turf course on June 6 and on the turf oval on June 20 to replace the course in advance of the autumn meeting that begins in late September. The final eight stakes of the meeting will be run on the main track.

The spring-summer meeting has a different schedule from 2014 and 2015, the first two years the track extended its winter-spring meeting following the closure of Hollywood Park in late 2013. In those years, Santa Anita ran from late December to late June before Los Alamitos ran a two-week meeting in July.

This year, Los Alamitos is holding a three-week meeting in April, following the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting. Santa Anita will have two weekends of racing in early July.

The spring-summer meeting has two days in June highlighted by two Grade 1 races. The $400,000 Vanity Stakes for fillies and mares and $400,000 Shoemaker Mile on turf are June 4. The $500,000 Gold Cup at Sana Anita at 1 1/4 miles on dirt and the $300,000 Triple Bend Stakes at seven furlongs will be run on June 25. The distance of the Vanity has been cut from 1 1/8 miles to a mile this year.

The first Grade 1 of the meeting is the $300,000 Gamely Stakes at 1 1/8 miles on turf for fillies and mares on May 30.