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[Al Gobbi]

Significant changes to the property at Santa Anita Park have been proposed in the past and many went by the wayside, but the tone from Tim Ritvo, The Stronach Group's chief operating officer, Jan. 7 was different.

What Ritvo stressed Sunday was that the drastic changes this time around—ideas to expand the barn area, build a second turf course, expand the main track, and build a brand-new training facility in nearby West Covina, Calif.—are not only desired, but essential.

The first step, Ritvo said, is to build about 1,000 new stalls to the north of the main oval at Santa Anita, an area that currently serves as a parking lot. While the master plan—which would include extending the main track from a mile to 1 1/8 miles, widening the turf course enough to make two separate grass courses, adding an L-shaped training track for jogging on the northern border of the property, and moving the inside training track slightly to accommodate those changes, as well as adding an outdoor mall that would run up to the paddock area—might be far off in the future, but adding the new barn area would also require approvals for various reasons from the City of Arcadia, as well as Los Angeles County. Ritvo wouldn't put a timetable on any of the changes, but said the barn addition could cost an estimated $12-$15 million.

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