santa anita handicap | Horse Racing Free Tips

Maxfield Headed to Big ‘Cap

Undefeated and widely considered among the top horses in training, Maxfield (Street Sense) will make his next start in Saturday's GI Santa Anita H.

The news was first reported by TVG's Christina Blacker.

“He'll head out there tomorrow,” trainer Brendan Walsh said. “We're looking forward to it. The race has been on our radar for a while. At 1 1/4 miles, it's a nice race for him and the timing is good. It gives us a chance to win a Grade I. The race makes sense.”

With Maxfield being owned by Godolphin, the Mar. 27 G1 Dubai World Cup seemed like a logical spot for Maxfield, but Walsh said the connections wanted to keep him closer to home.

“We kind of wanted to keep the horse in this country,” he said. “He's still a lightly enough raced horse. We wanted to keep him here, try to make progress and get a solid year's racing out of him. We want to get a good body of racing into the horse.”

Maxfield showed his talent at the outset, winning a maiden race before capturing te GI Claiborne Breeders' Futurity as a 2-year-old. But he missed out on the 2019 GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile, the 2020 Triple Crown races and the 2020 GI Breeders' Cup Classic due to some minor setbacks. In December, he returned to win the Tenacious S. at the Fair Grounds and then the GIII Mineshaft S. It was the first time in his career he was able to run in back-to-back races without a long break in between.

“It's been great,” Walsh said. “We always thought that the horse was super talented. That's been there for everyone to see. We came to New Orleans this winter and I thought it was great we were able to get those couple of runs into him. No disrespect to the horses he ran against down there, but we didn't have to face the very top horses in the country. That was a super important stepping stone for him for us to go ahead and take a step like he is going to take next Saturday. This will be a good test for him and a good experience for him to have to travel out to California.”

Walsh also provided an update on another star in his stable, Prevalence (Medaglia d'Oro). After he broke his maiden by 8 1/2 lengths, he was considered a possible starter in the GII Fasig-Tipton Fountain of Youth S., but had to miss the race after coming down with a temperature. He returned to the work tab Saturday, breezing a half-mile in :48.40 at Palm Meadows.

“It was a nice work and we were really happy with him,” the trainer said. “We'll probably try to find an allowance race at Gulfstream for him in the next book and go from there. We missed working him last week, so that eliminated any chance we might have had in running him in the Fountain of Youth. At the end of the day, he's only run one time, so it would have been a big ask to go against those horses. He's a lovely horse and I think he is progressing. He's going the right way.”

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Santa Anita Boosting Big ‘Cap Day Overnight Purses By $15,000 Per Race

Santa Anita Park and Del Mar Thoroughbred Club have joined forces to create the $1 Million Wild West Bonus providing $1 million in additional money to winning connections of any horse that sweeps three of Southern California's most prestigious Grade 1 races, the $400,000 Santa Anita Handicap on March 6, the $300,000 Hollywood Gold Cup (at Santa Anita) on May 31 and the $750,000 TVG Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Aug. 21.

Including the $1 million bonus, any horse sweeping these three races would bank a total of $1,870,000.

All three races are run at the North American classic distance of a mile and a quarter.

Santa Anita has also increased the purses of the China Doll Stakes to be run March 6 from $75,000 to $100,000. Additionally, Santa Anita will raise purses on all overnight races on Big 'Cap Day by $15,000 per race in an effort to ensure big fields and reward owners and trainers who continue to support Santa Anita on its most significant programs.

For additional information on the $1 Million Wild West Bonus, call Santa Anita's Racing Office at 626 574-6352.

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$1 Million ‘Wild West Bonus’ Created For Winner Of Big ‘Cap, Gold Cup, Pacific Classic

Santa Anita Park and the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club have announced they have joined forces to create the $1 Million Wild West Bonus. This will provide $1 million in additional money to the winning connections of any horse that manages to sweep three of Southern California's most prestigious Grade 1 races; the $400,000 Santa Anita Handicap on March 6, the $300,000 Hollywood Gold Cup (at Santa Anita) on May 31 and the $750,000 TVG Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Aug. 21.

Including the $1 million bonus, any horse sweeping these three races would bank a total of $1,870,000.

All three races are run at the North American classic distance of a mile and one quarter. The Santa Anita Handicap, which will be run for the 84th time, is for horses aged four and up, while the Hollywood Gold Cup and TVG Pacific Classic are open to horses three and up.

Santa Anita has also announced that it will boost the $75,000 China Doll Stakes, to be run on Big 'Cap Day, March 6, by $25,000, from $75,000 to $100,000. The China Doll, for 3-year-old fillies at one mile on turf, is one of five stakes, four of them graded.

Additionally, Santa Anita will raise purses on all overnight races to be run on Big 'Cap Day by $15,000 per race in an effort to ensure big fields and to reward those owners and trainers that continue to support Santa Anita on its biggest days.

For additional information on the $1 Million Wild West Bonus, please contact the Racing Office at Santa Anita by calling (626) 574-6352.

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Retired Trainer Julio Canani, Winner Of 1989 Big ‘Cap, Passes At Age 83

A native of Peru and a longtime trainer in Southern California, Julio Canani passed away at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena following a lengthy illness Friday morning at age 83, according to his daughter, Lisa. Retired for the past several years, Canani trained the longshot winner of the 1989 Santa Anita Handicap, Martial Law ($130.60), who was ridden by Martin Pedroza and owned in part by Jeff Siegel and Barry Irwin's Clover Racing Stable.

Self-made, Canani came to America as a teenager, initially working for a landscaping company before making his way to the racetrack, where his betting instincts and innate guile enabled him to establish a social and economic base from which he would eventually become a multiple stakes winning conditioner who forever spoke fractured English while readily dispensing a wide variety of nicknames—some complimentary, some, not so much.

Although the 1989 Big 'Cap surely helped to put him on the map, Canani gained national recognition by winning three Breeders' Cup races. The Mile, in 1999 and 2001 with Silic and Val Royal, and with Sweet Catomine, who won the 2004 Juvenile Fillies and was subsequently named Eclipse Champion 2-year-old Filly.

Although the truth quite often escaped him, Canani had an instinctive feel for what reporters were looking for and he often attracted notice by wearing a variety of hats, including natural fur chapeaus that were better suited for a Siberian Winter but nonetheless helped facilitate dozens of interviews, print and broadcast, over a career that spanned roughly 50 years.

Canani, who cut his training teeth via the claimbox, won his first stakes race in the 1975 Oceanside at Del Mar with Willmar, who he had haltered for $20,000. His lengthy list of stakes winners included Bruho, Putting, Silver Circus, Davie's Lamb, Tranquility Lake, Tuzla, Silent Sighs, Ladies Din, Special Ring, Amorama and others.

Canani, who saddled his last horse, Fantastic Mizz, to a second place finish on Oct. 23, 2015 at Santa Anita, finished with 1,137 wins and purse earnings of more than $49 million.

Divorced from his first wife, Jane, Canani is survived by their two children, Lisa and Nick, as well as his current wife, Svetlana and their two children, Isabella and Alexander. Julio Canani is also survived by two grandchildren and one great grandchild.

There are no funeral services planned at this time, but the Canani family has requested donations be made to the Edwin J. Gregson Foundation.

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