Horse racing followers get to unwrap one ultimate Christmas reward yearly on Dec. 26 when the southern California winter racing season celebrates its conventional day-after-Christmas opening day at Santa Anita Park. The date marks the beginning of a brand new meet – referred to as the Basic Meet – and kicks off one of many nation’s premier annual winter racing seasons. The upcoming meet marks the 90th anniversary of the monitor, which opened in 1934-’35 and shortly turned one of many signature racetracks of the 20th century and into the 21st.
SoCal racing’s 2024-25 Basic Meet at “The Nice Race Place” will proceed on a principally three-day-a-week foundation, Fridays by Sundays plus holidays, till April 6. Racing at Santa Anita will then take a brief break and proceed with its spring racing season from April 18 till June 15 (referred to as the Hollywood Meet because it picks up dates as soon as held by now-closed Hollywood Park).
Santa Anita Park will host 78 race dates together with the April-to-June a part of the schedule. A few of the highlights of the meets would be the working of the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap on March 1 and the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby on April 5.
Main Santa Anita Jockeys
The favourite to win the Santa Anita Basic Assembly jockey title by April 6 is Juan Hernandez, who has gained the final three winter (Basic) titles together with 53 wins (22%) finally yr’s meet. Hernandez added one other 36 wins within the spring (Hollywood) portion of the 2024 meet, and in addition was the runaway main jockey on the 2022-23 and 2021-22 Santa Anita winter meets together with a 63-win season (25%) two years in the past.
Antonio Fresu has continued to inch nearer and nearer to Hernandez at Santa Anita and could possibly launch one other bid at profitable the jockey title this season. He got here up only one win wanting the catching Hernandez for the spring title in 2024 after having completed second to Henandez finally yr’s winter meet with 46 winners (18%).
The remainder of the highest 10 jockeys finally yr’s Santa Anita 2023-24 Basic/winter meet by way of wins had been Flavien Prat, Frankie Dettori, Umberto Rispoli, Hector Berrios, Kyle Frey, Kazushi Kimura, Edwin Maldonado, and Tyler Baze.
Santa Anita Prime Trainers
Within the coach standings, Doug O’Neill is the defending champion on the Basic meet after ending with 31 wins from 163 starters for 19% final yr. He unseated the earlier yr’s main coach, Phil D’Amato, who gained the 2022-23 Santa Anita Basic meet with 32 wins (18%) to account for what, on the time, was his third straight meet title. D’Amato settled for third within the standings final yr with 28 wins from 160 starters for 18%.
Bob Baffert has been very constant the final two years at this Santa Anita meet, the place he gained 24 races from 89 starters (27%) final yr in a season that was similar to the yr earlier than when he gained 27 races from 99 starters for an equal 27% profitable proportion.
The coach with essentially the most momentum at the moment on the SoCal circuit is Mark Glatt, who gained 23 races (21%) on the Basic meet two years in the past after which moved all the best way as much as second within the standings final yr when he gained 29 races and posted a hefty 28% win proportion. You may count on that top stage of success to proceed this season primarily based on Glatt’s large season on the latest Del Mar fall meet the place he gained the coaching title by a cushty margin.
Different prime Santa Anita winter trainers ought to embrace Steve Knapp (19 wins for 18% finally winter’s meet), John Sadler (18 wins, 17%), Jeff Mullins (16 wins, 19%), Michael McCarthy (15 wins, 16%), Richard Mandella (14 wins, 26%), and Peter Eurton (14 wins, 16%). Trainers like Peter Miller, George Papaprodromou and Richard Baltas may also win their share.
Santa Anita Essential Monitor Developments
Let’s get to know “The Nice Race Place” by taking a fast take a look at some prevailing biases at Santa Anita Park in varied sorts of races primarily based on the statistics from the identical meet final yr.
By way of working type preferences and the profitable monitor profile on the principle monitor, velocity tends to do very effectively in all sprints, particularly at 5 ½ furlongs the place 65% of the winners (11-of-17) raced on or near the tempo inside a size of the lead. Pace in these races is very lethal from the within three posts.
On the mostly run dust dash distance of six furlongs, velocity was additionally superb with 57% of the winners (38-of-67) racing on or near the tempo. Solely three of these 67 winners (4%) at six furlongs had been closers that raced 4 or extra lengths off the tempo, so that you higher wager horses with not less than tactical velocity should you hope to have any probability to win these races.
The traits at 6 ½ furlongs and 7 furlongs are extra of the identical with velocity horses profitable 19 of the 31 races (61%) at 6 ½ furlongs, whereas closers gained solely 4 of the 31 races (13%). At seven furlongs, velocity horses gained 10 of the 16 races accounting for 63% of the winners, whereas closers gained simply two of the 16 races. Early velocity horses from the three inside posts are the perfect bets at seven furlongs. That phase of the starters gained 7 of the 16 races (44%) run at seven furlongs final winter.
Santa Anita Grime Routes
Most of Santa Anita’s routes this season can be run at one mile if the meet is something like final yr’s the place 61 of the 75 routes had been at a mile. Horses that race on or near the lead are likely to take pleasure in a tactical benefit in any respect distances on the Santa Anita major monitor, and this additionally contains routes. Within the 75 route races run at Santa Anita finally yr’s corresponding winter meet, 43 winners raced on or near the tempo (57% of all winners). Horses racing 4 or extra lengths off the tempo gained solely 5 of the 75 routes, a win proportion of solely 7%, together with 4 races at one mile and solely one of many 14 longer routes run on the meet.
By way of submit positions in Santa Anita dust routes, center posts 4-6 did the perfect with winners in 42 of final yr’s 75 dust route races (56%). This was even higher than horses from inside posts 1-3, who gained 31 of the 75 dust routes (41%). The typical area dimension in Santa Anita dust routes right now of the yr is simply six horses per race, so the skin posts are hardly ever related.
Santa Anita Turf Suggestions
With regards to grass racing, Santa Anita’s turf course is house to among the nation’s greatest over the winter. The Santa Anita turf course usually performs particularly reasonable to all working types and working paths.
In Santa Anita turf routes, early velocity horses as a gaggle and stalkers coming from between one and 4 lengths off the tempo as a gaggle had roughly the identical success final season, with the front-runners profitable 39 of the 104 turf routes and stalkers profitable 40 (38% of the races every). Closers had a lot much less success with 25 wins to account for twenty-four% of the races.
With a mean area dimension of narrowly beneath eight horses per race, outdoors posts weren’t a lot of an element, nevertheless it’s value noting that these horses usually did effectively to win 21 races, which is statistically greater than they need to have gained from a restricted variety of starters from these posts.
The opposite submit place development pertains primarily to hurry horses, which gained solely eight instances from inside posts 1-3, however did significantly better from center attracts. Speedsters from posts 4-6 gained 23 of the 104 turf routes accounting for 22% of the general winners of the turf routes run on the meet.
Trademark Santa Anita Turf Sprints
Santa Anita runs turf sprints at 6 ½ furlongs on its signature downhill course, in addition to flat turf sprints from its newer backstretch turf dash chute at 5 ½ furlongs, six furlongs, and 6 ½ furlongs (very hardly ever are races run at 5 furlongs).
The turf sprints beginning on the backstretch have change into way more prevalent at Santa Anita than the downhill sprints. These flat turf sprints have favored speedy sorts or horses in a position to keep inside a size of the lead since their inception, however the stats from final yr’s meet had been fairly even between front-runners and stalkers, with solely the closers from greater than 4 lengths behind being at a drawback in these races. Inside and center posts do the perfect, however outdoors posts aren’t horrible both.
Within the downhill turf sprints, the course is used a lot much less usually than it was and there have been solely 23 downhill sprints run finally yr’s corresponding meet. Information collected over a few years and a long time exhibits that these races favor horses with center and out of doors posts whereas posts 1-2-3 have lengthy been thought-about disadvantageous. These downhill sprints are usually honest to all working types, and that was the case finally yr’s meet the place speedsters (eight), stalkers (eight), and closers (seven) cut up up the wins pretty evenly.
Have a fantastic season at The Nice Race Place. Better of luck at Santa Anita!
