Tuesday's opening day at Santa Anita Park is one of racing's traditions that has stood the test of time – even after the Arcadia, Calif., track's season was stretched into the summer months with the closing of Hollywood Park and the racing calendar seems on an almost endless loop from one year to the next.
Horseplayers and horses competing in California got something of a breather in December, with no turf racing since Del Mar closed Dec. 3 and the abbreviated Los Alamitos Thoroughbred meet ending its run Dec. 17. Not quite like baseball's off-season but a welcome respite nonetheless.
That's what makes the day after Christmas something so many horseplayers and horsepeople look forward to: a sense that a new season begins.
Opening day is chockful of graded stakes action: three Grade 1 races for 3-year-olds (the Malibu, La Brea and American Oaks) and three Grade 2 (the San Gabriel, San Antonio, and Mathis Mile). The Malibu has been the centerpiece of the seasonal curtain raiser since 1984, when Santa Anita management moved the race to the last week of December from the first week in January.
Prior to 1984, it had served as the opening leg of the three-race Strub Series, restricted to 4-year-olds. The series progressed from the seven furlongs of the Malibu to the San Fernando Stakes at 1 1/8 miles three weeks later, and culminating in the mile and a quarter Charles H. Strub Stakes, named for Santa Anita's founder.
Somehow the warm-up act became the main attraction. The Malibu was elevated to Grade 1 for the first time in 1995 while the San Fernando and Grade 1 Strub Stakes both eventually fell by the wayside and are no longer on the track's stakes calendar. The Malibu is now an important late-season race that gives horses one last chance to put Grade 1 credentials on a potential stallion resume. More about that later.
First run in 1952, only three Kentucky Derby winners have won the Malibu, the first being Determine, who won the roses in 1954 and took the Malibu the following January.
Spectacular Bid, the 1979 Derby winner, turned in one of the most electrifying Malibu performances ever in 1980, winning by five lengths over Flying Paster in 1:20 for seven furlongs. It was the first win in a perfect 9-for-9 Horse of the Year campaign for the son of Bold Bidder. The Buddy Delp runner would go on to sweep the Strub Series and add the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap to his record. His career ended with a walkover in the Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park that fall.
The third Kentucky Derby-Malibu winner was Ferdinand in 1986, making his first start since a third-place finish in the Belmont Stakes in June. The Charlie Whittingham-trained son of Nijinsky II would lose his next six starts, then finish the year strong with four consecutive triumphs, including a thrilling Breeders' Cup Classic win over that year's Kentucky Derby winner, Alysheba.
One famous flop in the race was Affirmed, the 1978 Triple Crown winner who finished third of five Malibu runners in his first start at 4. Sent away the 3-10 favorite, Affirmed did not get the best of trips under Steve Cauthen, who had shifted his tack to California that winter and was mired in a lengthy slump that would eventually reach 110 races without a win. After another defeat in the San Fernando Stakes, trainer Laz Barrera replaced Cauthen with Laffit Pincay Jr., who teamed with the Exclusive Native colt to win the Strub by 10 lengths – the first of seven straight wins that would earn Affirmed a second consecutive Horse of the Year crown.
In recent years, the Malibu has proven to be a key race for stallion prospects. Into Mischief, the current king of the North American stallion ranks, went to stud at Spendthrift Farm following his second-place finish to Bob Black Jack in the 2008 Malibu. Spendthrift has gone to the Malibu well for stallion prospects several times since then, most recently with 2019 winner Omaha Beach and last year's winner, Taiba. Lane's End stands two of the last six Malibu winners, City of Light (2017) and Flightline, who won the 2021 running and then had a perfect 3-for-3 season to be Horse of the Year in 2022.
This year's Malibu attracted a field of eight, only one of whom even competed in the Kentucky Derby – that being Kentucky invader Raise Cain, who finished a non-threatening eighth behind Mage on the first Saturday in May. The Ben Colebrook-trained colt comes in off a hard-fought win in the Perryville Stakes at Keeneland at the same distance as the Malibu. The most proven of the eight runners in the field is Damon's Mound, a two-time Grade 2 winner on the East Coast for trainer Michelle Lovell.
The path to the winner's circle likely travels through the barn of Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, who has three colts entered, a pair of Grade 3 winners in Fort Bragg and Speed Boat Beach, plus recent allowance winner Hejazi – a $3.55 million 2-year-old purchase at Fasig-Tipton's Midlantic Sale of 2-year-olds in May 2022. Baffert will be bidding for a sixth Malibu win, which would put him on equal footing with fellow Hall of Famer Richard Mandella.
Post time for Tuesday's 11-race card is 11 a.m. PT/2 p.m. ET. The Malibu, the eighth race, is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. PT/5:30 p.m. ET.
Santa Anita opening day entries.
The post Once A Warm-Up Act, Malibu Became Santa Anita’s Opening Day Headliner appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
