Saturday, November 9, 2024

Horse racing notes: Santa Anita cancels Saturday racing due to rain

Must read

SANTA ANITA LEADERS

(Through Thursday)

JOCKEYS / WINS

Juan Hernandez / 13

Flavien Prat / 5

Frankie Dettori / 5

Three tied / 4

TRAINERS / WINS

Bob Baffert / 8

Mark Glatt / 5

Four tied / 4

WEEKEND STAKES AT SANTA ANITA

Sunday

• $200,000 Grade III La Cañada Stakes, fillies and mares, 4-year-olds and up, 1 1/16 miles

DOWN THE STRETCH

• With a 100% of rain forecast for Saturday, Santa Anita has canceled its eight-race program that day. Saturday’s races will be offered as extras Sunday, Monday and Friday, Jan. 20. The Grade III La Cañada Stakes, originally scheduled for Saturday, will be run Sunday. January 20 was originally scheduled as a dark day after Monday’s holiday racing. “It looks like we’re going to be turning the corner and we look forward to sunny skies later next week,” Nate Newby, the track’s senior vice president and general manager, said in a statement.

• Trainer John Sadler said the decision to retire Flightline came so soon after the Breeders’ Cup because the horse’s connections wanted the chance to give their champion the best shot at success in his career as a stallion. He maintains the decision was not made before the Breeders’ Cup. “There’s a new trend where the Japanese will buy some of these million-dollar mares and breed them to an Into Mischief or a Flightline and then they go to Japan,” he said. “We just didn’t wanna miss out on that window. I don’t know how many mares he got for the Japanese, but I know he got some.”

• Speed Boat Beach, trainer Bob Baffert’s speedy 3-year-old son of Bayern, will be pointed to the Grade II San Vicente Stakes at 7 furlongs on Jan. 28 at Santa Anita. Baffert scratched the colt out of the 1-mile Sham Stakes last weekend. “I’ve been running him on turf and I kind of go by my gut,” Baffert told Victor Ryan of Santa Anita publicity. “I don’t know if he was prepared.” Speed Boat Beach has won three of four starts, two of them on the turf.

— Art Wilson

More articles

Latest article