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Santa Anita Returns Traditional Pick Six

Santa Anita Park will return to a traditional $1 Pick Six when its 18-day Autumn Meet opens on Friday, Sept. 29, the track said in a press release early Friday.

Officials have responded to the wishes of a vast number of players seeking a return to a more traditional format with 70 percent of the net pool paid to tickets which correctly select all six winners and 30 percent paid in a consolation payoff to those players who select five of six winners.

As is the case with the traditional Pick Six format, in the event there are no tickets with all six winners, 70 percent of the net pool is carried over to the next card and 30 percent is paid out to winning consolation tickets.

The Pick Six will again be comprised of the final six races on each day's program with a mandatory payout in place on closing day, Sunday, Nov. 5.

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Late NYRA Photographer Bob Coglianese to be Honored at Saratoga

Friday's first race at Saratoga is named in honor of Bob Coglianese, the late NYRA track photographer who passed away in December. Coglianese, who would have been celebrating his 89th birthday, spent more than half of a century documenting racing history. Friends from his decades at the track are welcome to join in the winner's circle presentation following the race and all are encouraged to turn their attention to the on-track screens for a video tribute. If you would like to honor his legacy, the Coglianese family recommends donations to the Belmont Child Care Association, the Backstretch Employee Service Team, or the New York Race Track Chaplaincy.

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Market Street Will Try Turf in With Anticipation

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – In an atypical move, Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas said that GIII Saratoga Special S. runner-up Market Street (Street Sense) will likely make his next start on grass in the Aug. 31 GIII With Anticipation S.

Lukas, 87, built his exceptional career with dirt horses and most years saddles far fewer horses on the grass. So far in 2023, just six of his 193 starters (3%) have run on turf. Since the beginning of 2019, 11.9% of his starters have been on turf. His most recent graded stakes winner on turf was Skyring (English Channel) in the 2014 GII Mervin Muniz Jr. H.

In the last four-and-a-half seasons, Lukas has had 38 2-year-old starters on turf from a total of 301 runners (12.6%) and has a record of 0-1-4.

Conditions permitting, Lukas's first 2-year-old runner on the grass this year could be Seize the Grey (Arrogate) Friday in the Skidmore S. With a rain forecast of 90% Thursday night and 100% Friday, there is a good chance that the New York Racing Association will move the turf races to the dirt.

Lukas has targeted the 1 1/16 miles With Anticipation for Market Street because he is planning to run Just Steel (Justify) in the GI Hopeful Sept. 4. Just Steel finished second by three lengths to 'TDN Rising Star' Pirate (Omaha Beach) on July 15 and broke his maiden by a nose on Aug. 5.

Market Street set the early pace in the 6 1/2-furlong Saratoga Special, but Rhyme Schemes (Ghostzapper) unleashed an impressive run in the stretch and matched his Ellis Park maiden score with a 9 1/2-length victory. Lukas said he was pleased with Market Street's run in the Special–“I thought it was good enough,” he said–even though he was a distant second to a spectacular performance.

“That's what happens up here,” he said. “You run a real good race and all of a sudden you look up and there's one that is really good. You have to deal with them.”

Lukas said Market Street will not train on the turf before the With Anticipation, but with his running style should be able to handle the surface change.

“We're not smart enough to have a crystal ball to tell whether they like it or not,” he said. “That's always a conversation among trainers. I always say, 'I don't think anybody knows till they try it.' I've really got a couple other horses backed up, so it's kind of a nice fit for him to drop in there.”

Lukas noted that in this wet summer at Saratoga Race Course the With Anticipation might end up on the dirt.

Through Wednesday's racing, Lukas has a record at Saratoga of 2-9-0 from 25 starters. Both of his wins and five of his seconds have come from 13 starts with 2-year-olds. He said he has five maidens in his barn.

“Our 2-year-olds should all come around a second time now pretty strong,” Lukas said.

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CHRB Awards ’24 SoCal Dates, But Warns NorCal Uncertainty Could Be Factor In Final Say

Southern California's racing calendar for 2024 will nearly mirror this year's dates template, with the exception of Del Mar Thoroughbred Club being awarded a fifth week at its fall meet to dovetail with that track's hosting of the Nov. 1-2 Breeders' Cup.

But several California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) commissioners who voted in favor of next year's SoCal schedule at the Aug. 17 monthly meeting made it clear those dates allocations were not to be considered a “rubber stamp” approval that couldn't change at some point in the future.

That caveat was relevant because of the uncertainty unleashed upon the statewide industry July 16 when 1/ST Racing, which owns both Santa Anita Park and Golden Gate Fields, announced that Golden Gate would cease racing at the end of this year.

On Aug. 16, a 1/ST Racing executive said at a meeting of the CHRB's race dates committee, which reports to the full board, that the company might be willing to push back Golden Gate's closure by six months, to June 2024, pending discussions with industry stakeholders about how to best re-work the NorCal schedule in a way that doesn't harm the $30 million investment the company is making to improve SoCal racing.

That Wednesday news about Golden Gate's possible six-month reprieve prompted differing opinions on Thursday between the California Thoroughbred Trainers (CTT) and the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC) about how the CHRB should handle its scheduled agenda item that dealt with the awarding of the '24 SoCal dates.

Alan Balch, the CTT's executive director, advocated for the CHRB to hold off on awarding the '24 SoCal dates.

“We believe the entire state is interdependent,” Balch said. “We welcomed the [1/ST Racing] suggestion [Wednesday], not only that they would consider extending northern California at Golden Gate, but that they supported additional racing in the future in Northern California after the closure of Golden Gate. Since the state is integrated, because horses run [on both northern and southern circuits], we strongly urge this board not to allocate southern California dates given the pendency of potential legislation, and for many other reasons, until all the stakeholders can get together [to work out a plan].”

Bill Nader, the TOC's president and chief executive officer, said that it was his group's belief that the “absence of insight in knowing what the north might look like didn't really influence the south.”

Thus, Nader continued, it would be “prudent” to award the SoCal dates on Thursday in order to give “the rest of the country some clarity and completeness that California is still strong and has a vision leading into 2024.”

Bill Nader | Horsephotos

CHRB commissioner Thomas Hudnut said he thought the CTT's idea had merit because delaying the awarding of dates to Santa Anita could be used as an aid in negotiating how 1/ST Racing might help the industry absorb the massive gap it is creating in the NorCal schedule.

“We can't force dates on anybody. But we can withhold them,” Hudnut said. “And I think there is some merit in the suggestion of the CTT to avoid awarding any dates right now. The dates are the 'carrot,' and the 'stick' we have is not awarding them pending people getting their collective acts together…”

After listening to industry stakeholders go back and forth for 2 3/4 hours at Wednesday's dates committee meeting, CHRB commissioners Wendy Mitchell and Damascus Castellanos both expressed concerns on Thursday how some entities didn't seem to be acting with enough urgency considering one month has passed since 1/ST Racing let it be known it would walk away from California's lone commercial Thoroughbred license in the north.

“I've been on this board four years now, and we're really at a crossroads more so than I think we've been [at] in my time here,” Mitchell said. “And I'm very concerned…. It is more urgent than it's ever been to have the industry stay in California.”

Said Castellanos: “Everybody has an idea of working together and doing what they've got to do for the industry. But nobody really came to us [Wednesday] with a plan…. So my concern is the urgency…. We can't force dates on anybody. You guys have got to come up with this…. I suggest, as an industry, get together. Figure it out.”

Eventually, Hudnut moved to defer the allocation of the SoCal race dates until the board's September meeting. But no commissioner seconded his motion, so it died.

CHRB chairman Gregory Ferraro, DVM, took a different approach. He not only made a motion that the board take up the SoCal dates issue right away, but he specified that the '24 dates for that region be “the exact replication of the dates we awarded for 2023, with the exception of the one week” during which Del Mar hosts Breeders' Cup.

Santa Anita, this year's Breeders' Cup host, currently has control of that extra autumn week. Its executives did not lodge any opposition Thursday to Del Mar being granted that week in '24.

Ferraro's motion was seconded. Before the final vote was taken, CHRB vice chair Oscar Gonzales reminded commissioners who might be cognizant of Hudnut's “carrot and stick” analogy that the board still has other resources to act as cudgels of compliance, such as the CHRB's powers to halt any licensee's ability to race at any time, or even to deny a license altogether after blocks of dates have been awarded.

“I mean, we have a lot of latitude as the board, so it's among the reasons that I intend to vote for southern California racing dates knowing that this board has been empowered [to make changes after awarding blocks of dates],” Gonzales said. “I believe we are going to be paying very, very close attention to see how things unfold here over the next few weeks and months.”

The motion to award the '24 SoCal dates then passed, with Hudnut casting the lone dissenting vote.

The exact blocks of SoCal dates were not read into the record prior to the vote. But the template they will follow lines up with year's rotation: Santa Anita from Dec. 26, 2023, to late June 2024; then Los Alamitos through early July; Del Mar through mid-September; Los Alamitos until late September; Santa Anita through late October; Del Mar through the first week of December; Los Alamitos until late December.

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