Santa Anita down to two days a week
 

In case you haven't noticed, there's no racing at Santa Anita today. There will also be no racing next week. Supposedly, in 2 weeks, we will go back to racing on Friday.

To me, this is a sign of real trouble within the sport. Not enough horses to even race 3 days a week?

Welcome to CALIFORNIA racing.

Ostensibly, the turf course is getting a break ahead of anticipated heavy use during the rest of the meet.

From the DRF (published over 3 weeks ago, by the way):

Santa Anita will not race at all on April 9 and 16, and will not race on turf on April 10 and 11 to give the turf course a brief rest next month in advance of the final months of the winter-spring meeting, track officials said Saturday.

As a result of those added off days, there will be a gap of nearly two weeks without turf racing from April 5-16 for maintenance, racing secretary Chris Merz said. The course will be used extensively through the conclusion of the current meeting on June 20.

“The turf course needs a break for everything to come together,” Merz said.

What a convenient excuse to use for lack of horses....Dilan is correct.

Good thing they make up for it with a great announcer! :ThmbUp:

We had a great announcer. Santa Anita fired him.

That move never made sense. :confused:

Put a fork in it and sell the property. Make it a Homeless encampment.

I am completely amazed whenever I criticize California racing in other forums how people lambaste me and accuse me of having an east coast bias. Last Saturday they have 3 five horse fields and 3 six horse fields.
I compound this with why TVG is based out of California. I understand the access to producers, studios, etc. from the Hollywood business, but realistically everything in the horse business happens in Kentucky. The sales, breeding, etc. Heck, many of the TVG personalities have either moved or purchased homes in Kentucky in the last few years.
This industry needs to get more transparent. Look at what the show Driven has done for Formula 1. There are so many good personalities in this sport and total access would not only allow these to be highlighted but also open up this sport to new fans.

I have something of a west coast bias (as some on this forum know), and even I know the product at Santa Anita completely sucks these days.

I truly do not understand why people have the need to get on here and criticize
a whole racing jurisdiction. There is so much that can be improved in the sport to get in back to the way it used to be when fans would climb trees just to see a race.

Food for thought:

A. This is a very tough job just to fill races with a dwindling horse population in the face of severe safety measures (not reciprocated elsewhere) and intense public scrutiny; then try to do it multiple times per week. Uncommonly you even see a whole race card cancelled due to insufficient entries. To those of you that think is easy enough to be in a position to offer criticism, get a condition book and try filling a race.

B. The reason we all go to the track is to pick winners. While I love the racetracks that run races all across the country, no race ever fails to have a winner because of the track’s location.

Racetracks make a lot of sacrifices for us. They are allotted only seasonal dates, deal daily with scrutiny, pass on lucrative real estate deals (unless managed by CDI or Jack Liebau), and get very little positive publicity from the media. While I, like everyone else, have my favorite track, I take my topknot off to each track that are in the field and thank you for the enjoyment you have given every fan.

Now let someone post some great Santa Anita stories instead of a thread declaiming California "completely sucks".

IMO high caliber CA turf racing has been a notch below some other areas of the country that focused on it more. Maybe this signals a shift.

It's starting to feel like OP, KEE, CD, FG and few others are slowly becoming the centers for the best dirt racing, CA is somewhere in between, and NY is the center for high caliber turf racing.

Now HERE is a guy who should be "in front of a crowd". :ThmbUp: :D

when the decoupling of slots to the tracks happens and SA loses its casino revenues they are in deep trouble.