ARCADIA, Calif. – Laura Wohlers, amateur handicapper and peripatetic horse trainer, knows that guesswork is a part of horse racing. When she sends out Runhappy as one of the favorites Friday in the 10th running of the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Santa Anita, she – like most everyone else – can only guess at how the colt will fare.
“Ideally, you don’t want to go into the Breeders’ Cup with only one race under your belt,” Wohlers said. “But there’s nothing we can do about it now.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – The Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap will be worth $750,000 in 2017, down from $1 million the last two years, and the Grade 1 American Oaks has been moved from the spring to late December of this year as part of a 61-race stakes schedule for the 2016-17 winter-spring meeting at Santa Anita.
The winter-spring meet runs from Dec. 26 to April 9 and is the first of two meetings at Santa Anita in the first six months of the year. The track will run a spring-summer meeting from April 14 to July 4.
ARCADIA, Calif. – When the English jockey Harry Bentley stepped off the plane Sunday at LAX, it was onto terra incognita. Not only has Bentley never ridden a race in this country, he had not even been here until this week.
Bentley rides Limato on Saturday in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, and it is fair to wonder if a young English rider will be disadvantaged at Santa Anita, which has a turf course unlike any in Europe. But Bentley has riding experience far beyond Europe that might help compensate for his lack of familiarity with North American-style racing.
ELMONT, N.Y. – For most of the year, trainer Chad Brown has been too busy moving forward to take time to look back. But as interest increased in Lady Eli’s remarkable return to Grade 1 form after her battle with life-threatening laminitis, Brown has begun thinking about where his filly is and where she’s been.
At this time last year, Lady Eli was on a farm in Kentucky getting some paddock time while on the upswing from laminitis. The illness arose after she stepped on a nail while walking back to her barn following a victory in the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks on July 4, 2015.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita officials are hopeful that the Breeders’ Cup races Friday and Saturday will draw at least 100,000 fans for the two days.
“The weather looks right,” said track senior vice president Joe Morris. “The presales are strong. We should be there.”
Morris said approximately 35,000 people are expected to attend Friday’s program, while Saturday’s attendance is predicted to reach 65,000.
“We could get close to 70,000,” Morris said.
On the face of things, it will be a fairly standard Saturday for Mort Fink. He and his wife, Elaine, in their suburban Chicago home, will flip on a racing channel and place some bets.
The Saturday gambling used to happen at Arlington’s simulcast parlor. Fink is 87. He’s long dealt with diabetes, and there have been more recent setbacks. “I have no balance and can’t walk by myself,” he said. It got to where he couldn’t stand feeling folks’ pity when he and his wife went to play the races.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Miss Southern Miss, the winner of the Surfer Girl Stakes at Santa Anita in her turf debut Oct. 10, will miss Friday’s $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Santa Anita because of a sore shin, trainer Keith Desormeaux said on Monday.
Desormeaux said the injury was detected Monday following a gallop. Miss Southern Miss was a leading contender for the BC Juvenile Fillies Turf on the basis of her recent win.
“It’s a shame,” Desormeaux said. “She won’t be able to enter. We’ll probably give her 30 to 45 days.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – Joking, who went from being a $20,000 claimer to a Grade 1 winner, was entered Monday for Saturday’s $1.5 million Breeders’ Cup Sprint but is not expected to run after developing a temperature last Friday upon his arrival to Southern California, according to Charlton Baker, his owner and trainer.
Joking has not been to the track since arriving at Santa Anita on Friday, and Baker said it would take "divine intervention" for the horse to run in the Sprint.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Bob Baffert said he needs Klimt to be sharper earlier in Saturday’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile than he was in the FrontRunner Stakes a month ago.
On Monday, Klimt went a solid half-mile in 47.32 seconds over the main track at Santa Anita. Working in company with the maiden Master Play, Klimt went in splits of 11.79 seconds and 23.27 and galloped out five furlongs in 1:00.66.
ARCADIA, Calif. – California Chrome and Arrogate, the top two choices on the morning line for the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Saturday at Santa Anita, both gave every indication on Monday morning that they are set to give their best in their much-anticipated battle.
California Chrome merely galloped in his first morning here after traveling on Sunday from his base at Los Alamitos, but he looked terrific doing it, while Arrogate turned in a sensational workout in his final prep for the Classic. Effinex, the runner-up in last year’s Classic, also worked.
