Weather prompts Thursday card to be canceled; Friday stakes moved to weekend
ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita has amended its racing schedule for the forthcoming weekend because of significant rain forecast for Wednesday and Thursday, cancelling racing on Thursday and shifting three stakes scheduled for Friday to the Saturday and Sunday programs.
Racing will be held Friday through Sunday.
Saturday, Santa Anita will run four stakes, including the Grade 3 Robert Frankel Stakes for fillies and mares on turf, which was originally scheduled for Friday.
The Sunday program includes two $100,000 races for 3-year-olds at a mile on turf – the Eddie Logan Stakes and the Blue Norther Stakes for fillies. Those races were scheduled for Friday, but the threat of rain has pushed them back 48 hours.
Sunday, the track began its 78-day winter-spring meeting with an 11-race program, all on dirt. Six of the races were scheduled for turf, but were moved to the main track because of persistent rain in the preceding days.
Tracks operate under a California Horse Racing board policy adopted in 2019 that states venues must have a unanimous agreement from the track superintendent, racing officials and jockeys that racing can be conducted safely if the main track has been sealed because of excessive rain.
Heavy rain caused the postponement of the opening-day program in 2019.