Santa Anita purse increase to cost $1.5 million

ARCADIA, Calif. – The six-week purse increase that takes effect at Santa Anita on Friday will cost approximately $1.5 million and is intended to boost fields at a time when the track’s barn area is well short of capacity.

Last Friday, the racetrack and the Thoroughbred Owners of California announced a purse increase of $10,000 for all overnight races for 19 racing days through June 2. That same day, track officials said five Thursday programs had been eliminated through May 23, with the status of racing on three Thursdays in June to be determined next month.

The season ends June 23.

Funding for the purse increase will be shared by The Stronach Group, the track’s parent company, and the Thoroughbred Owners of California, the official representative of horsemen in the state. Each group will contribute $5,000 per race, according to Tim Ritvo, chief operating officer of The Stronach Group.

Friday’s program did not have an immediate boost in entries. There are 53 horses entered in eight races. Last Friday, 54 horses ran in eight races.

As of Sunday, there were approximately 1,640 racehorses on the backstretch, a figure that includes about 300 2-year-olds who have not raced as well as ponies, according to an official. There are about 200 empty stalls. Several California-based trainers have sent runners to Kentucky for the Keeneland meeting, which ends Friday, and the Churchill Downs meeting, which begins Saturday.

Ritvo is hopeful the purse increase will lead some owners and trainers to send horses back to California. The purse increase comes after a tumultuous period in which the track lost 13 days of racing in March after a series of equine fatalities earlier this year.

“A lot of horsemen have thanked us for the commitment,” Ritvo said on Saturday. “It’s positive, and we need something like this.

“Obviously, we hope everyone is staying with us. It’s a short-term pickup. We have to figure out a longer-term plan for all of the state of California.”

With a format of racing three days per week through June 2, the track is hoping to card eight races on Fridays, 10 on Saturdays, and nine on Sundays. There will be racing on Memorial Day, May 27.

Under that format, the track will run approximately 172 races through June 2, of which 20 are stakes that will not have increased purses. Filling all those races could be a challenge. The last two Sundays have been plagued by a lack of entries, leading to eight-race programs.

Under the new purse format, a maiden special weight race has been increased from $55,000 to $65,000, slightly higher than a $61,000 purse that will be offered at Del Mar this summer. In Kentucky, a maiden special weight race at Keeneland has been worth $47,800 and will have a purse of $77,800 at Churchill Downs. The Kentucky purses are even higher if a statebred earns prize money. The Churchill Downs purses have been enhanced by revenue from historical racing machines at a nearby track-owned casino.

The California purses do not include bonuses for statebreds, which are paid in addition to the listed purses.

The Santa Anita purse increase will be a massive boost for lower- and middle-class runners such as maiden claimers and claimers. A $50,000 claiming race for maidens on Sunday was worth $32,000. The same race on Friday will be worth $42,000, an increase of 31 percent.

Nick Alexander, the chairman of the Thoroughbred Owners of California, said on Saturday that the loss of four stakes in March worth a combined $875,000 “had a buffering effect” on the purse account, which helped to finance the increase.

“You would think that being off for three weeks, the account would suffer,” Alexander said. “With a lot of stakes being gone, it didn’t have that bad of an effect. Before the closure, we were pretty healthy going forward.”

Echoing track officials, Alexander said he is hopeful the higher purses will lead to larger fields and greater interest from bettors.

“Sometimes you have to spend money to make money,” Alexander said. “We have to assure people Santa Anita is a competitive place to run and encourage horsemen to stay and race.

“The alternative is to do nothing. The trainers I’ve surveyed are positive. Some of the owners that were thinking of leaving are not. It might be anecdotal, but the survey was positive.”