Overnight purses will increase by an average of 8 percent at the current Santa Anita winter-spring meeting, effective Feb. 28, the track announced on Tuesday.
The increase comes despite a purse overpayment of approximately $6 million accrued in recent years, officials said recently.
Citizen Bull, last year’s champion 2-year-old colt and the winner of this year’s Robert B. Lewis Stakes in his only 2025 start, has been made the 6-1 individual morning-line favorite for the fourth Kentucky Derby Future Wager Pool, which will open on Friday and close on Sunday at 6 p.m. Eastern.
Citizen Bull, who won the Robert B. Lewis by 3 3/4 lengths in front-running fashion, is one of 39 individual entries for the Future Wager. The field, or "all other 3-year-olds," entry is the overall morning-line favorite at 5-1.
Getaway Car will invade from Southern California to lead a field of nine for the $400,000 Sunland Park Derby next Sunday in New Mexico. He will launch his 3-year-old season in the 1 1/16-mile Kentucky Derby points race off a runner-up finish in the Grade 2 Los Alamitos Futurity.
The Sunland Park Derby anchors a 10-race card that includes the $250,000 Sunland Park Oaks. There are five stakes on the program. First post is 12:25 p.m. Mountain.
La Cara, the 6 1/2-length winner of Saturday’s Suncoast Stakes, will likely make two more starts before the Kentucky Oaks on May 2, trainer Mark Casse said.
Casse said he will use the Grade 2 Davona Dale Stakes at Gulfstream on March 1 to get to the Grade 1 Ashland at Keeneland on April 4.
While the decision to run in the Davona Dale means cutting back to a one-turn mile, Casse sees it as the best way to get to the Ashland. Casse said he doesn’t want to wait two months to run La Cara again.
Add the name John Hancock to the list of lightly raced, later-developing colts from the barn of Brad Cox who will attempt to make it to the Kentucky Derby.
John Hancock’s front-running, hard-fought, half-length victory over Owen Almighty in a start-to-finish, 1 1/16-mile battle in Saturday’s Sam Davis earned him a start in another Kentucky Derby points-qualifying race, though it probably won’t be in the $400,000 Tampa Bay Derby on March 8. John Hancock earned 20 Derby qualifying points for his Sam Davis victory.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Getaway Car, second in the Grade 2 Los Alamitos Futurity in December in his last start, will not travel to Saudi Arabia for the Saudi Derby on Feb. 22, and instead is scheduled to start in the Grade 3 Sunland Park Derby in New Mexico on Feb. 16, trainer Bob Baffert said on Sunday.
The $400,000 Sunland Park Derby is run at 1 1/16 miles. The $1.5 million Saudi Derby is run at a mile.
Baffert said the extensive travel was the primary reason to change race goals.
“It’s a tough ship for him,” he said of the journey to the Middle East.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Tamara, the impeccably bred Grade 1 winner, is scheduled to undergo surgery to have a bone chip removed from an ankle later this week, trainer Richard Mandella said.
Tamara sustained the injury in late January when she kicked a fence while leaving Santa Anita’s infield training track, Mandella said.
“She’ll have a chip taken out of an ankle at the end of the week,” Mandella said.
“It shouldn’t be a long downtime. We’re hoping to have her back at the end of the Del Mar meeting.”
Del Mar’s summer meeting runs from July 18 to Sept. 7.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Big City Lights, the dazzling winner of two stakes for California-bred sprinters in November and January, is set to start in Saturday’s Grade 3 Palos Verdes Stakes at Santa Anita in a prep race for the Group 1 Golden Shaheen Sprint in Dubai on April 5.
After Big City Lights won the California Cup Sprint at six furlongs by 7 3/4 lengths, earning a lofty Beyer Speed Figure of 103, trainer Richard Mandella mentioned that the 6-year-old horse may not start again until the $2 million Golden Shaheen at six furlongs.
A field of 13 3-year-olds, headed by Grade 1 winner East Avenue, was entered Saturday for the Risen Star Stakes on Feb. 15.
The Grade 2, $500,000 Risen Star, carded for 1 1/8 miles as the last of 14 races at Fair Grounds, six of them stakes, is the first 105-point scoring race (50-25-15-10-5) on Churchill Downs’s Road to the Kentucky Derby, a series of stakes for 2- and 3-year-olds that awards Derby qualifying points to the top finishers. The final points standings determine the field for the Derby, which is capped at 20 runners.
The Sonoma County Fair will not conduct a summertime race meeting in Santa Rosa, Calif., this year, an expected setback for California racing.
In a press release issued earlier this week, the Sonoma County Fair board said it has suspended plans to seek a racing license from the California Horse Racing Board
“The Board recognizes that, unless an extraordinary opportunity arises, horse racing at Santa Rosa is not financially viable for the 2025 Fair,” the statement read, in part.
