In Los Angeles, the day after Christmas used to be synonymous with Santa Anita’s opening day. When I first got here 30 years ago, the track would blanket the airwaves with radio spots and the LA Times had full page ads and 50,000 people would show up for gambling and a calendar.
Of course, 2019 hasn’t been a typical year for the Great Race Place and when the skies opened up on the 26th and snow closed down the Grapevine, Santa Anita postponed opening day to yesterday. It was a great decision.
I went over there early for Clocker’s Corner. It was cold for Los Angeles (low 40s) and there were quite a few families and tourists sipping the complimentary coffee and watching the horses along with the racetrackers. If they looked closely, they saw elements of the New World Order. The track got ripped, it got probed, it got sampled and then mixed like some grand science experiment. I saw it fluffed up, tamped down, and leveled with precision. They had specialized equipment I’ve never seen before out there or at any racetrack. The renovation break took at least twice as long as normal which makes me wonder how they will streamline this for everyday use.
The races started really early to cram them in before sundown and the track was a little empty around 11 AM which made me wonder how successful the day was going to be. Then around 12:30, people started to stream in in earnest. The final tally was around 35,000 (or as the LA Times put “only 35,000 where racing is under a cloud”–yadda yadda yadda).
After seemingly abandoning the track to its fate, the Racing Gods turned and smiled. The weather was crisp, clear and glorious and the mountain backdrop looked like a postcard. The racing was wonderful. In the American Oaks, favorite Lady Prancealot was blocked all the way into deep stretch and then showed her class by diving through a tight hole at the rail and winning by three quarters. In the Grade 3 Frankel Stakes, Mirth did her one better and lost the lead in deep stretch and then battled back to win by a nose. I’m not sure Castellano knew what hit him. Gift Box, who has to be one of the best looking horses I have seen for a long time, showed them how it is done with an authoritative win in the San Antonio while the one eyed Hard Not to Love gave John Shirreffs a win over heavy favorite Bellafina in the La Brea. Omaha Beach demonstrated why he is probably the best three year old colt this year although I am sure Maximum Security will get the nod.
Now how much play will this get in certain circles which are predisposed to think of Thoroughbred racing as the Great Satan of horse sports and which lumps Santa Anita in with some bush track in Louisiana? My guess is probably as much as when Del Mar pulled off the miracle of no afternoon deaths this summer. But the tide has turned and it feels different. For one thing, the politicians have shut up. I haven’t heard any threats from Gavin Newsom for a few months now. The common belief here is that someone took the Governor aside, showed him the economic impact of the sport on California and told him to cool it. Besides the calendar will turn and even PETA looks moronic trying to lump every accident in with what happened a year ago.
What happened this year will probably go down as a turning point. The question remains as to the way forward but I think racing in this state was due for a shake up. This is a billion dollar industry and we need to be more professional. We also need to remember that without the horses, we are nothing and people who don’t live that creed need to go.
But first things first–it was a wonderful day.
