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Start Date Delayed By Bobcat Fire, Santa Anita Announces Revised Autumn Stakes Schedule

With its original start date delayed due to air quality concerns related to the Bobcat Fire, Santa Anita Park has announced a revised Autumn Meet Stakes Schedule, which will begin on Friday, Sept. 25 and will offer fans and horsemen a total of 12 stakes, 11 of them graded, over its three-day opening weekend. Prominent among these stakes offerings are a total of seven Breeders' Cup “Win & You're In” Challenge Race qualifiers, which will be run Saturday and Sunday.

With first post time set for 12:30 p.m. on Friday, the Grade II, $200,000 Eddie D Stakes, for 3-year-olds and up at 5 ½ furlongs on turf and the Grade III, $100,000 Chillingworth Stakes, for fillies and mares three and up at 6 ½ furlongs on the main track, will highlight the opening day card.

On Saturday, Sept. 26, a total of seven stakes, five of them Breeders' Cup “Win & You're In” qualifiers, will be offered on what promises to be a blockbuster Breeders' Cup prep afternoon.

The Grade I, $300,000 Awesome Again, for 3-year-olds and up at a mile and one eighth (which promises to attract superstar Maximum Security), the $300,000 Rodeo Drive, for fillies and mares at a mile and one quarter on turf, the Grade I, $300,000 American Pharoah, for 2-year-olds at 1 1/16 miles, the Grade II, $200,000 Chandelier, for 2-year-old fillies at 1 1/16 miles and the $100,000 Speakeasy Stakes, for 2-year-olds at 5 ½ furlongs on turf, are all Breeders' Cup “Win and You're In” stakes that will provide the winners of each race a fees-paid berth into their respective Breeders' Cup races at Keeneland Nov. 6 & 7.

In addition to these five Breeders' Cup Challenge Races on Saturday, Santa Anita will also present the Grade II, $200,000 John Henry Turf Championship for 3-year-olds and up at a mile and one quarter on turf and the $75,000 Unzip Me Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at 5 ½ furlongs on turf.

On Sunday, two additional Breeders' Cup “Win and You're In” Challenge Races will be offered, the Grade II, $200,000 Zenyatta Stakes for fillies and mares at 1 1/16 miles and the Grade II, $200,000 Santa Anita Sprint Championship, for 3-year-olds and up at six furlongs. The Grade III, $100,000 Tokyo City Cup, to be run at the marathon distance of a mile and one half, will also share top Sunday billing.

Although Santa Anita remains closed to the general public due to the Covid-19 pandemic, fans are encouraged follow Santa Anita's live racing free of charge via santaanita.com. Those wishing to watch and wager may do so via XpressBet.com or 1stBet.com. Santa Anita's complete Autumn Meet Stakes Schedule is available at www.santaanita.com/stakes-schedule/.

For additional information, please visit santaanita.com or call (626) 574-RACE.

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Keeneland Sales Director Geoffrey Russell Joins TDN Writers’ Room

The world-renowned Keeneland September Sale has been a long time coming this year. With the coronavirus pandemic canceling and postponing much of the sales season, all eyes are on Lexington this week as Keeneland hosts its first live in-person auction since COVID-19 first hit American shores. Director of Sales Operations Geoffrey Russell joined the TDN Writers’ Room podcast presented by Keeneland Wednesday as the Green Group Guest of the Week to discuss the obstacles faced by the company in conducting the sale and his early impressions of the trading.

“We’ve been fortunate that we are pretty much the only sales company in the world that has conducted the sale on the calendar that we set in January, which we actually find quite amazing,” Russell said. “We’ve been planning for it since we went into lockdown Mar. 16 and each plan changed monthly. We didn’t know what we were allowed to do, what we weren’t allowed to do. At one stage, we were told we couldn’t use the sales pavilion. Now we’re allowed to use it at 40%. It has been a moving target all the way along. We joked back in the early part of the pandemic, our internal Zoom calls were called the ‘what if?’ meetings. What if this happens, what if that happens, what can we do here?”

The sale has gone off without a hitch through the first several hundred hips, however, and considering the circumstances, results have been robust, with 14 seven-figure horses changing hands in the first two days.

“The top of the market has been very strong,” Russell said. “We’ve had 14 individual horses bring in excess of $1 million and, most interestingly, to 13 different buyers. So the buying group has spread out a bit and the numbers at the top end are staying the same.”

Keeneland has been proactive about instating strict COVID-19 protocols for both its sales and racing seasons, which Russell admits has gotten some mixed responses but says is necessary to get through this extraordinarily busy couple of months for the company and the business as a whole.

“COVID has been a very polarizing situation, but we are very concerned about this time of year,” he said. “We have September, we have our October race meet, we have the Breeders’ Cup in November and we have our November Breeding Stock Sale. It’s a very important three months for us and for the Thorougbred industry. We wanted to make sure that we could conduct all of those and we work very diligently with our state government and local health departments. We have pushback form several people about masks, about the fact that we ask for testing on our consignors. But when you explain to them why we want it, for the safety of everybody, everybody understands it. While they’re not happy about it, they’re at least fulfilling our requests.”

Elsewhere on the show, in the West Point Thoroughbreds news segment, the writers lamented the fall of the Betfair exchange in America and analyze why it didn’t work out. Plus, they discuss the scary situation of wildfires raging near Santa Anita, react to the announcement of no fans being allowed at the Breeders’ Cup and pay tribute to the late Pat Smullen. Click here to watch the podcast, click here for the audio-only version.

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Santa Anita Pushing Back Opening Day to Sept. 25 Due to Fires

The opening day of Santa Anita’s Autumn season will be pushed back a week until Friday, Sept. 25 due to the impact of the Bobcat Fire on the air quality and surrounding community.

“Our local community has been deeply impacted by the Bobcat Fire burning for more than a week in the mountains behind us,” said Aidan Butler, Executive Director of California Operations for The Stronach Group. “The current weather pattern has kept the smoke in the valley and the air quality is quite poor right now. The Red Cross is using Santa Anita as the evacuation zone for people–including many of our horsemen–whose homes are less than two miles from here. As excited as we are to welcome back live racing, we are first and foremost committed to safety. This is the responsible decision to make at this time so people can plan accordingly.”

“The stakes races set for this weekend will be brought back next weekend,” said Steve Lym, Santa Anita’s VP, Racing & Racing Secretary. “The smoke has impacted some training schedules, so postponing until next weekend will allow everyone a chance to be ready to go. We are planning on filling extra races throughout the meet to give our horsemen the opportunity to run their horses.”

The Opening Week now will feature a blockbuster schedule of stakes action, offering over $2-million in purse money. The stakes schedule includes seven races which are “Win and You’re In” races for the 2020 Breeders’ Cup World Championships. The stakes races originally slotted for this weekend will be run as follows: the Chillingworth Friday, Sept. 25, the Speakeasy Saturday, Sept. 26 and the GIII Tokyo City Cup Sunday, Sept. 27.

Entries for Opening Day, September 25, will be drawn Sunday, Sept. 20, as scheduled. First post will be 12:30 p.m. PT.

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Due To Air Quality Concerns, Santa Anita Will Push Opening Day Back To Sept. 25

The opening day of Santa Anita's Autumn season will be pushed back a week until Friday, September 25, due to the impact of Bobcat Fire on the air quality and surrounding community.

“Our local community has been deeply impacted by the Bobcat Fire burning for more than a week in the mountains behind us,” said Aidan Butler, Executive Director of California Operations for The Stronach Group. “The current weather pattern has kept the smoke in the valley and the air quality is quite poor right now. The Red Cross is using Santa Anita as the evacuation zone for people – including many of our horsemen – whose homes are less than two miles from here. As excited as we are to welcome back live racing, we are first and foremost committed to safety. This is the responsible decision to make at this time so people can plan accordingly.”

“The stakes races set for this weekend will be brought back next weekend,” said Steve Lym, Santa Anita's VP – Racing & Racing Secretary. “The smoke has impacted some training schedules, so postponing until next weekend will allow everyone a chance to be ready to go. We are planning on filling extra races throughout the meet to give our horsemen the opportunity to run their horses.”

The Opening Week now will feature a blockbuster schedule of outstanding stakes action, offering over $2-million in purse money. The stakes schedule includes seven races which are “Win and You're In” races for the 2020 Breeders' Cup World Championships. The stakes races originally slotted for this weekend will be run as follows: the Chillingworth on Friday, September 25, the Speakeasy on Saturday, September 26 and the Tokyo City Cup on Sunday, September 27.

Entries for Opening Day, September 25, will be drawn on Sunday, September 20, as scheduled. First post will be 12:30 p.m. PT.

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