santa anita | Horse Racing Free Tips

Weekend Lineup: Gulfstream’s Tropical Turf Part Of Rainbow 6 Mandatory Payout Sequence

There are only three American graded stakes races this weekend, the Tropical Turf Stakes at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla., and the La Canada and Las Cienegas Stakes at Santa Anita in Arcadia, Calif. All are Grade 3 events run on Saturday.

Here is a brief look at all three races. All times are Eastern.

Saturday, Jan. 9

4:49 p.m. – $100,000 Tropical Turf Stakes at Gulfstream Park

The Tropical Turf, for 4-year-olds and upward going one mile on turf, features the return of Analyze It, coming off a career worst performance in the G1 Shadwell Turf Mile at Keeneland on Oct. 3. Off for nearly two years from November 2018 until September 2020, the 6-year-old Point of Entry horse trained by Chad Brown finished eighth as the favorite under Tyler Gaffalione. Irad Ortiz Jr. has the mount on Saturday. Prior to that effort, he won his comeback race, the G3 Red Bank Stakes at Monmouth Park. Three years ago, Analyze It was only beaten three-quarters of a length by Expert Eye when third in the G1 Breeders' Cup Turf Mile. Ride a Comet came back for his own two-year layoff for trainer Mark Casse to win consecutive races at Woodbine on synthetic, including the G2 Kennedy Road. He won the G2 Del Mar Derby in 2018 before going on a lengthy hiatus.

The Tropical Turf will be the fifth race in the Rainbow 6, which will have a mandatory payout on Saturday and is expected to have a wagering pool in the millions of dollars.

https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/GP010921USA10-EQB.html

6:35 p.m. – $200,000 La Canada Stakes at Santa Anita

Fighting Mad has quietly compiled a record of five wins, one second and one third from nine starts for trainer Bob Baffert. The 5-year-old mare by New Year's Day threw in the towel last out when overtaken by both Harvest Moon and Hard Not to Love in the G2 Zenyatta Stakes, but she figures to be out winging on the front end again on Saturday.

Trainer John Shirreffs is going with the up-and-coming jockey Ricky Gonzalez on Hard Not to Love, the quirky Hard Spun mare who has been ridden by Mike Smith in her last seven starts. She's won five of 10 lifetime but has lost four straight after winning the G2 Santa Monica over seven furlongs last February. Chilean-bred Sanenus, a G1 winner in her native country, returns to California after making two starts at Churchill Downs last fall and could spring a surprise.

https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/SA010921USA8-EQB.html

7:05 p.m. – $100,000 Las Cienegas Stakes at Santa Anita

Intriguing lineup with Brazilian-bred Jolie Olimpica back to defend her title for Richard Mandella, who also has up and comer Superstition in the line-up for this filly and mare turf sprint. If the race sets up for a closer, watch out for Neil Drysdale-trained Oleksandra, the Australia-bred 7-year-old mare who will be flying late under Joel Rosario. Lighthouse was a dynamo on the Kentucky Downs turf course in September, winning the Music City Stakes by 1 1/2 lengths and Umberto Rispoli rides the turf as well as any jockey in the game.

https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/SA010921USA9-EQB.html

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Stronach 5: 16 Winning Tickets Each Return $6,382

There were 16 winning tickets in Friday's popular Stronach 5, each returning $6,382.70.

The largest payoff in the five-race sequence featuring races from Laurel Park, Santa Anita Park and Gulfstream Park and an industry-low 12-percent takeout was $9.20.

Friday's sequence kicked off with Wonderwall, a 3-year-old filly from the barn of leading trainer Claudio Gonzalez, winning Laurel's eighth race followed by Candygramformongo winning Laurel's ninth race.

The Stronach 5 moved to Santa Anita Park for its third race. Reddam Racing LLC's That Corey, a 3-year-old son of Square Eddie who finished second at Del Mar last time out, ran away from nine others on a mile turf course to break his maiden.

The last two legs were both contested at Gulfstream over the turf. Star Weaver, a lightly-raced 4-year-old by Dialed In, led gate-to-wire to win the ninth race for his second victory in his last three starts. The sequence concluded with Gulfstream's 10th race and Golovkin holding off Lord of War by a nose.

Friday's races and sequence

· Leg One – Laurel Park 8th Race: Wonderwall $9

· Leg Two –Laurel Park 9th Race: Candygramformongo $9

· Leg Three –Santa Anita 3rd Race: That Corey $6.20

· Leg Four –Gulfstream Park 9th Race: Star Weaver $9.20

· Leg Five –Gulfstream West 10th Race: Golovkin $9

Fans can watch and wager on the action at 1/ST.COM/BET as well as stream all the action in English and Spanish at LaurelPark.com, SantaAnita.com, GulfstreamPark.com, and GoldenGateFields.com.

The Stronach 5 In the Money podcast, hosted by Jonathan Kinchen and Peter Thomas Fornatale, will be posted by 2 p.m. Thursday at InTheMoneyPodcast.com and will be available on iTunes and other major podcast distributors

The minimum wager on the multi-race, multi-track Stronach 5 is $1. If there are no tickets with five winners, the entire pool will be carried over to the next Friday.

If a change in racing surface is made after the wagering closes, each selection on any ticket will be considered a winning selection. If a betting interest is scratched, that selection will be substituted with the favorite in the win pool when wagering closes.

The Maryland Jockey Club serves as host of the Stronach 5.

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Training Horses Is Still A Work Of Art For Sherman

The New Year is here and one of racing's undisputed good guys, Art Sherman, welcomed it in fine fettle as he prepares to turn 84 on Feb. 17.

In 2016, Sherman was named winner of the Big Sport of Turfdom Award, awarded annually by the Turf Publicists of America honoring a “person or group of people who enhance coverage of Thoroughbred racing through cooperation with media and racing publicists.”

Sherman, who gained fame and fortune most trainers can only dream about when California Chrome burst on the scene in 2013, is content with a more mundane pace these days.

On Sunday, he runs the 4-year-old filly Acting Out in the $75,000 Kalookan Queen Stakes for fillies and mares, four and up, over 6 ½ furlongs at Santa Anita Park.

She also was nominated to Saturday's Grade 2 La Canada Stakes, but with two G1 winners in the field (Fighting Mad and Hard Not to Love), Sherman felt the race came up too tough and opted for a softer spot.

A gray daughter of Blame, who handed the great Zenyatta her lone defeat by a diminishing head in a dramatic edition of 2010 Breeders' Cup Classic under the late Garrett Gomez, Acting Out won her last two starts in overnight races by a combined margin of just over 10 lengths, one on turf and the other on dirt.

“She's doing well and been running well on both surfaces,” said Sherman, who owns 50 percent of the filly with his son, Alan. Bobby Harkins and Zvika Akin share the remaining 50 percent.

Born in Brooklyn where he became street smart in his father's Runyonesque barber shop, Sherman later moved to Los Angeles and went to work for Rex Ellsworth, accompanying the great Swaps in May of 1955 to Churchill Downs where he won the Kentucky Derby, and on Aug. 31 to Washington Park in Homewood, Ill., 27 miles south of Chicago, for a historic match race with Nashua before a crowd of 35,262.

Sherman began a career as jockey in 1957, retired in 1978, and took out his trainer's license in 1979. Thirty-four years later along came California Chrome and the rest, as they say, is history.

Sherman is comfortable with a stable of “about 10 horses” at his Los Alamitos headquarters, and has no plans to call it a career.

“If people read that I might retire, nobody will want to give me any horses,” he said.

Winner of the Kentucky Derby in 2014 and a two-time Horse of the Year in 2014 and 2016, California Chrome became an international fan favorite and Team Sherman was aboard for the wild ride.

The California-bred son of Lucky Pulpit-Love the Chase retired with a 16-4-1 record from 27 races, earning $14,752,650. Now 10, he stands at stud in Japan for four million yen ($36,500 in Yankee dollars).

“The only time I get to see him is on Facebook,” Sherman said, “but I'd sure like to visit him. I have an open invitation to see him anytime.”

Aside from keeping tabs on California Chrome and winning races, Sherman's foremost priority is his health, which, knock on wood, is good these days. Presently he is cancer-free from a tumor that was discovered on his bladder and surgically removed in March of 2019.

“My last visit four months ago I was free of cancer,” Sherman said, “so I won't have to see the doctor again for a while.”

And that's the best news of this or any year.

The field for the Kalookan Queen, race eight of nine with a 12:30 p.m. first post time: Amuse, Drayden Van Dyke; Biddy Duke, Umberto Rispoli; Qahira, Joel Rosario; Acting Out, Abel Cedillo; Dynasty of Her Own, Ricky Gonzalez; and Mo See Cal, Flavien Prat.

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Stabling in California Stabilized in “Stopgap” Funding Measures

Facing a reported $2-million budget deficit, the Southern California Stabling & Vanning Racing Committee has performed a fiscal juggling act to maintain the stabling status-quo in the southern portion of the state during 2021, with year-round auxiliary stabling assured for the year at Los Alamitos and San Luis Rey Downs, while off-site training will continue at Santa Anita during the Los Alamitos Thoroughbred and Del Mar Fall meets.

Last year, the program–funded in equal parts by the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC) purse account and the Southern California racetracks–cost approximately $9.4 million, the committee explained in a letter addressed to the trainers Thursday.

Historically, monies have come from a percentage of bricks and mortar simulcast wagering at tracks and satellites. But due to the economic impacts of COVID-19, that revenue stream was largely decimated last year.

What’s more, with state-wide purses off more than $20 million since 2018 due largely to a massive betting shift towards ADW platforms, “the horsemen’s purse account is not in a position to continue to subsidize millions of dollars per year” towards the program, the letter states. This at a time when “inefficient training” is not “filling fields,” the letter adds.

According to the letter, the following three main actions were taken to keep the program afloat:

-The auxiliary stabling facilities agreed to cut their stabling rates by more than $1 million and to carry the $2 million of debt from 2020.

-Both the TOC and the SoCal racetracks have each agreed to fund an additional $2 million–above the statutory funding–to help cover the projected deficit this year. These funds will come from the TOC purse account and racetrack commissions respectively.

Had these measures not been taken, either Los Alamitos or San Luis Rey Downs could have faced closure this year, and possibly both, the letter warns.

According to the letter, another possible ramification could have been the imposition at Los Alamitos or San Luis Rey Downs of a new per-day “stall rent” charge, potentially “rebate-able” based on a minimum number of per-trainer starts per stall–an idea that TOC president and CEO Greg Avioli mooted in October.

The letter also addresses several barometers of the overall fiscal performance of the state’s industry:

-Due to a shrinking horse inventory, for much of 2020 both Los Alamitos and San Luis Rey Downs operated at less than 50% of horse capacity–850 at the former and 450 at the latter.

-The racing participation of horses stabled at both Los Alamitos and San Luis Rey Downs was “remarkably low”–0.6 starts per horse during this past year’s Santa Anita winter-spring meet.

-As a consequence, between December 2019 and June 2020 the 749 horses that the stabling and vanning program spent some $4 million to stable and train at Los Alamitos and San Luis Rey generated 486 starts during Santa Anita’s six-month winter-spring meet. This translates into more than $8,000 per starter.

-Workers compensation costs have increased dramatically. Since the beginning of 2019, owners’ per-start contributions have risen more than 60% from $100 per start to $162 per start. At the same time, trainers’ per-stall fees have risen from $3.05 to $5.10.

-More than 90% of workers compensation claims result from morning training.

The letter also makes clear that this financial arrangement is a temporary one.

“The purpose of this letter is to inform the CTT and ALL California trainers of the state of the stabling and vanning fund. The negotiated deal outlined above to keep the SoCal auxiliary training program essentially the same in 2021 as it was in 2020 is only a stopgap measure,” the letter states. “The current economics of SoCal Stabling & Vanning are not sustainable long term.”

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