Last year’s Del Mar summer season opener carried such a weird vibe that Del Mar Thoroughbred Club CEO Joe Harper spent much of it walking around in a surreal, dreamy haze. This year, Harper and the rest of Del Mar’s sold-out, opening-day crowd – and yes, we said “crowd†– […]
Fantasy sports meets pari-mutuel wagering and spawns visions of an endless revenue stream for California. That’s the dream, and an actual possibility, by this coming August if a proposal by the California Association of Racing Fairs (CARF) gains traction with the California Horse Racing Board. CARF officials presented the proposal […]
Rock Your World rocked the Santa Anita Derby, which rocked bettors into producing Santa Anita Park’s largest all-sources pari-mutuel Santa Anita Derby handle in 14 years. On a day where fans returned to the Southern California track for the first time in more than a year, the 8,246 attendees on […]
About the only thing faster than Life Is Good on the track was the rush of horses piling into the Santa Anita Derby the moment the Bob Baffert supercolt departed the Kentucky Derby Trail with an ankle injury. Now, all of a sudden, horses like Dream Shake, Parnelli, Law Professor […]
The monstrous shadow of Gamine will emerge from her five-month vacation on Sunday when the Champion Female Sprinter of 2020 makes her 4-year-old debut in the Grade 3 Las Flores Stakes at Santa Anita Park. She will likely make it as the odds-on favorite for the six-furlong Las Flores. The […]
With California relaxing guidelines on allowing limited crowds into sporting venues, Santa Anita Park announced Thursday it will reopen to the public on Friday, April 2. That’s just in time for the following day’s Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby. Track officials didn’t reveal how many tickets they will sell or […]
Like her father, who put himself out there against the best horses of his era, Mucho Unusual dodges nobody. Put a graded stakes race out there for fillies and mares, and Mucho Unusual is a usual suspect. Better yet, put it on the Santa Anita Park turf, where the California-bred […]
The El Camino Real Derby is one of those Kentucky Derby Trail detours. Like December’s Springboard Mile at Remington Park, the John Battaglia Memorial and Jeff Ruby Steaks at Turfway Park and the Sunland Derby at Sunland Park, it’s not on the beaten Derby trail path. Once upon a time, […]
Bezos makes his debut today in a maiden special weight race on Santa Anita Park’s Super Bowl Sunday card. This is hardly the class of race guaranteed to suck the oxygen out of the room on the biggest sporting day on the American calendar. In horseracing, however, today’s fifth race […]
The Grade 2 San Vicente Stakes at Santa Anita Park may not be a Kentucky Derby prep in the strictest sense of the term. There are no Derby qualifying points on the table and the winner gets no closer to a gate date at Churchill Downs the first Saturday of […]
This was a Grade 1 stretch duel playing out in a Grade 3 Kentucky Derby prep; one vaulting Medina Spirit into the front row of Derby contenders as we enter February. And once again, Bob Baffert holds yet another ace up his sleeve, along with his 10th Robert B. Lewis […]
In 2012, little-known 43/1 long shot I’ll Have Another won the Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita Park. This feat drew mild murmurs and a few curious looks throughout the horseracing world. After all, the Doug O’Neill-trained colt came into the Lewis off a horrible sixth in the Hopeful […]
Citing a major winter storm expected this weekend, Santa Anita Park canceled its Friday racing card. The Southern California track announced the move Tuesday morning. Track officials announced that two turf stakes, the Grade 2 San Marcos on Saturday and Sunday’s Black-Type $75,000 Baffle, will move to next week. The […]
Golden Gate Fields, shut down in November after a COVID-19 breakout ravaged its workforce, will resume racing Jan. 15, according to track owners, The Stronach Group. That ends a two-month shutdown of the Northern California track imposed when 24 workers initially tested positive for COVID-19. In the wake of that, […]
The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act of 2020 officially became law Sunday night when President Donald Trump signed the $2.3 trillion omnibus spending bill. That bill provided $900 billion for COVID-19 relief, along with keeping the US government operating. HISA was part of that bill. Representatives Andy Barr (R-KY) and […]
The Malibu Stakes is the bow on the 2020 racing season. It gives horseplayers and racing fans a deserving end to this year’s wild, unpredictable runaway roller coaster that was Horseracing 2020. There’s Nashville, he of the freakish speed. There’s Charlatan, he of the one-time Kentucky Derby favorite status. There’s […]
The tempting storyline in Saturday’s Grade 1 La Brea Stakes at Santa Anita Park is to look at the seven-furlong race through the quality vs. quantity prism. Steve Asmussen’s standout filly Finite vs. Bob Baffert’s quartet of Merneith, Golden Principal, Himiko and Provocation. Asmussen sending a multiple Grade 2 and […]
Starting with the upcoming Santa Anita Park and Golden Gate Fields winter/spring meets, California became the latest state to ban the use of Lasix in the majority of stakes races. The California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) unanimously approved the terms of an agreement between the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC) […]
Bob Baffert rarely tastes defeat in the Starlet Stakes, which makes him the perfect trainer to put the crown back on Princess Noor’s head in Saturday’s Grade 1 Starlet at Los Alamitos. To do that, Princess Noor will not only have to beat two of her Baffert stablemates in the […]
There is no Maximum Security or Improbable to trouble Midcourt this time. This time, being Saturday’s Native Diver Stakes at Del Mar, where Midcourt is the trouble. Midcourt is the one to beat in the $100,000 Grade 3 Native Diver Stakes. The 1-1/8-mile jaunt for older horses sends a condensed […]
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