ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita executives have held preliminary discussions with Los Angeles County officials about reopening the track to customers this spring.
Nate Newby, Santa Anita’s senior vice president and general manager, said over the weekend that no plans have been finalized and that the presence of paying customers is contingent on a continued decline in the level of COVID-19 positives in Southern California.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Life Is Good, winner of the Grade 3 Sham Stakes on Jan. 2 at Santa Anita in his stakes debut and the most highly-regarded 3-year-old in Southern California, breezed five furlongs in 59.60 seconds on Sunday in preparation for the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes on March 6.
Trained by Bob Baffert, Life Is Good has been given a breezing designation in his last two workouts, including five furlongs in 1:00.80 on Feb. 15. California clockers use the breezing designation to indicate that a horse was working more easily than a horse that was rated as working handily.
ARCADIA, Calif. – When Charmaine’s Mia won Saturday’s Grade 2 Buena Vista Stakes for fillies and mares on turf at Santa Anita, Phil D’Amato secured his seventh stakes victory of the meeting, leaving him in a tie with Bob Baffert as the leading stakes-winning trainer of the winter-spring meeting.
All of D’Amato’s stakes wins since opening day on Dec. 26 have been on turf. Baffert’s seven stakes wins have all been on dirt.
D’Amato does not project a dirt stakes win for his stable in the short-term future.
“Maybe when Bob Baffert retires,” D’Amato said Sunday.
The New York Racing Association on Saturday announced two bonuses for female turf horses.
Should a previous winner of the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks, Grade 3 Saratoga Oaks, or Jockey Club Oaks – races restricted to 3-year-old fillies – win this year’s Grade 2, $750,000 New York Stakes on June 4 at Belmont Park, that horse would earn its owner a bonus of $315,000 and its trainer a bonus of $35,000.
Jockey Flavien Prat earned his 1,000th win in North America and got started on his second thousand when winning the first three races on Friday’s card at Santa Anita. He won once with two other mounts later on the card.
Prat got the milestone victory in race 2 aboard 3-5 favorite Clockstrikestwelve, who split horses at midstretch and got up in time in the 6 1/2-furlong race. He had won the opener, a maiden route turf race, with another odds-on favorite, Du Jour, and came back in race 3, a turf sprint, to win with 2-1 Luvluv.
Trainer Mark Casse, who left New York this winter, said he plans to starting shuttling horses back to Belmont Park in late March. Before then, however, he may have a starter in the Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham Stakes on March 6.
Helium, a son of Ironicus who went 2 for 2 last fall over Woodbine’s synthetic surface, is being considered for a dirt start in the Gotham. The one-turn mile Gotham offers its winner 50 points toward the May 1 Kentucky Derby.
Express Train and Independence Hall, two of the older horses pointing to the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap on March 6, both worked Friday morning at Santa Anita.
Express Train, coming off a dominating victory in last month’s San Pasqual, went six furlongs in 1:12.40 for trainer John Shirreffs.
:: Enhance your handicapping with DRF’s Santa Anita Clocker Report
The Jockey Club Gold Cup and Flower Bowl Stakes – two Grade 1 staples of the Belmont Park fall meet – have been moved to Saratoga and will be run on the closing Saturday of the 2021 meet, the New York Racing Association announced Friday as it released the stakes schedule for the 40-day Saratoga meet.
To accommodate this change, the Grade 1 Woodward will return to Belmont Park – it had been run at Saratoga since 2006 – and the Waya, a Grade 3 marathon turf stakes for fillies and mares, will move from Saratoga to Belmont’s fall meet.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Swiss Skydiver, the 3-year-old filly champion of 2020, was out for serious work before dawn Friday at Gulfstream, with a half-mile breeze in 46.80 seconds. It was the third work for Swiss Skydiver since she returned from a short rest at trainer Kenny McPeek’s Ocala, Fla., farm, Silverleaf Hills.
:: Enhance your handicapping with DRF’s Gulfstream Park Clocker Report
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The top five finishers from the Jan. 30 Holy Bull plus a Breeders’ Cup winner are among the prospective starters for the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth Stakes, which will be run next Saturday for the 74th time at Gulfstream Park.
