86% chance of rain for Santa Anita Handicap day March 2
 

Will they run?

EDIT: Looks like they may kick the card to Sunday:

https://www.drf.com/news/santa-anita...unday-due-rain

(Fun fact, the Santa Anita Handicap used to be run on Sunday quite a lot.)

They moved it.

https://www.drf.com/news/santa-anita...orecasted-rain

Has there been any word on how this effects the $6000 Ultimate Betting Challenge tournament?

It's a good question and I see nothing in the track's press release on it, and the website still advertises it for March 2.

Frank Stronach's operation running at its usual low level of efficiency!

The race is going to have a tough time keeping its Grade 1 status if it keeps drawing fields like this because of the Saudi Cup and Dubai World Cup, but at least it's not a 5 horse field with 3 Baffert horses.

You'll have to play Golden Gate instead :lol:

It shouldn't be a Grade I. I suspect the only reason it still is, is sentiment. Indeed, the Hollywood Gold Cup (which faces less competition on the calendar) is now a better race.

Obviously Santa Anita has a lot bigger problems than this right now, but I have heard scuttlebutt that this race is actually a point of some concern amongst Santa Anita management and there have been discussions about moving it on the calendar/shortening it/finding some way to save it. It's the track's signature race, a race that has enormous resonance (think Seabiscuit) and used to routinely draw big crowds (even after average on-track attendance declined) and it's dying.

The Ultimate Betting Challenge will be contested as scheduled. It will now be ONLY on the GP races.

There will be a $1500 tournament on Sunday for the Big Cap day races.

Grade 1 used to mean a lot more than it does today.
For the player, Gr1 means just what you describeshit races for inseders.
FAR too many gradd races these days,
Should be a small numberof them. Make them mean something.

I was there at Big Cap day a couple years ago and its pretty much a shadow of what it used to be. By this I mean by the crowds that showed up, it could've been mistaken for any other Saturday at Santa Anita. I'm guessing the purse getting smaller while other races having bigger purses has pretty much taken away its former prestige.

Eliminating the Strub series for newly turned 4yos & the purse reduction precluding much interest from top level East Coast shippers helped put the nail in the coffin.

They gutted & retooled the Santa Margarita series as well just on the off chance that a dominant mare like Bayakoa or Serena's Song might have wanted in on the race.

Par for the course with the ridiculously illogical stakes schedule at Santa Anita (look at the deranged prep schedule for the SA Derby).

Also, the Tiznow Stakes was supposed to be run 2 weeks ago on February 19, but uber-CA bred The Chosen Vron was scaring away the competition. The streaking Kings River Knight was pointing for that race, too. The last time they met (March 2023), they were separated by a whisker.

But SA decided to pass on the race.

Yeah, no one would have come out to watch that match race...(Kings River Knight found another race to run in...and won).

I'm sure the $10k claimer full of Los Al horses they used as a replacement probably netted them more money & publicity.

The big things that killed the SA stakes schedule were (1) Dubai/Saudi Arabia and (2) trainers wanting 4-6 weeks or more between races.

The Hollywood Gold Cup is not the better race; in fact it is the first of the 2 to be demoted to a Grade 2 race starting this year.

It was the better race starting circa 1989 up through the synthetic era. Starting in 1989, the Big Cap for most editions starting producing one-off winners: Martial Law, Sir Beaufort, Malek, Stuka, Urgent Request, Mr. Purple, Heatseeker, Misremembered, etc.

However, since transferring to Santa Anita, the Gold Cup has been a joke:

Majestic Harbor - an allowance horse at the time of winning
Hard Aces - an allowance horse
Melatonin - an allowance horse
Cupid - a Grade 2 horse
Accelerate - a Grade 2 horse that had a good year once Gun Runner & Arrogate retired
Vino Rosso - a Grade 2 horse
Improbable - a Grade 2 horse
Country Grammer - a Grade 3 horse
There Goes Harvard - an allowance horse
Defunded - a Grade 2 horse

The Gold Cup was gutted by the loss off its historically strong preps in the Californian & Mervyn Leroy. Again, the SA braintrust just shoehorned it into the stakes schedule with no real plan.

Both races ought to be Grade 3s. The resistance to downgrade is probably due to both being part of just 4 remaining major dirt stakes at 10 furlongs in this country outside the BC Classic (the Pacific Classic & JCGC being the others).

I mean, a couple of those HGC winners went on to win the BC Classic Spalding!