Three-day racing weeks for rest of Santa Anita meet

ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita is likely to run three-day race weeks through the end of the spring-summer meeting on June 23 and has extended a $10,000 per race increase in overnight purses through at least June 9, racing secretary Steve Lym said over the weekend.

Santa Anita began three-day racing weeks on April 26-28 because of concern over the availability of race-ready horses. At the time, track officials said the schedule would continue through June 2 and running on the first three Thursdays of June would be evaluated at a later date.

Over the weekend, the track published a condition book listing the proposed races for May 24 through June 9. There is no racing scheduled for Thursday, June 6.

Lym said a final decision regarding racing on June 13 and 20 has not been made, but that racing on those days is unlikely.

“I think it’s safe to say we’ll end the meet with three days,” he said.

Lym said the track is planning to run Thursdays through Sundays for most weeks during the autumn meeting, which runs from Sept. 27 to Nov. 3. The Breeders’ Cup races will be run at Santa Anita on Nov. 1-2.

This summer, Los Alamitos is planning to run four-day racing weeks for its three-week meeting, which runs from June 27 to July 14, while Del Mar’s summer meeting is scheduled to have mostly five days of racing. The Del Mar meet runs from July 17 to Sept. 2.

Santa Anita has no immediate plans to resume turf sprints on the hillside turf course for this meet.

Santa Anita has changed the distances of three stakes from about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course to five furlongs on the main turf course – the Grade 3, $100,000 Daytona Stakes on May 25, the Grade 2, $200,000 Monrovia Stakes for fillies and mares on May 26, and the $75,000 Desert Code Stakes for 3-year-olds on June 9.

There have been no sprint races on the hillside turf course since March 31, when a horse sustained a fatal injury on the course in the Grade 3 San Simeon Stakes.

“It’s safe to say we won’t get on the hillside for the rest of the meet,” Lym said. “I’m not saying we won’t be back on it for the fall.”

The track has resumed using the hillside turf course for the start of distance races. Last Saturday, the Grade 3 Santa Barbara Stakes for fillies and mares at 1 1/2 miles started on the hillside turf course and was run without incident.

The tentative racing schedule for the next three weeks, through June 9, includes four turf marathons that will start on the hillside turf course – the Grade 2 Charles Whittingham Stakes at 1 1/4 miles on May 25, an optional claimer at 1 1/2 miles on May 26, a maiden special weight race for fillies and mares at 1 1/4 miles on June 1, and a maiden special weight at 1 1/4 miles on June 8.

The maiden races on June 1 and 8 each has a base purse of $65,000, but will be worth $75,000 if there are seven or more starters because of a field-specific clause in the race conditions. The same sort of race was worth $55,000 before the track and the Thoroughbred Owners of California boosted purses for overnight races in late April in an effort to draw larger fields.

It is not clear if the purse increase has affected field size.

Through Sunday, the track has averaged 7.4 runners per races since March 29, when racing resumed after a break of more than three weeks following a series of equine fatalities earlier in the year. Fields have averaged 7 runners per race since the $10,000 increase for overnight races was enacted April 26.

There is an average of 7.8 entrants per race for Friday’s eight-race program and 9.5 entrants per race on Saturday’s 10-race program.