A month ago, fans trying to pick winners at Santa Anita might have been unsure what to make of a horse like Almost Snow, a 5-year-old gelding entered in a low-level sprint on Friday.
Almost Snow has achieved all of his victories at Golden Gate Fields and Pleasanton, in the San Francisco Bay Area, and now will be facing horses seasoned on the richer Southern California circuit. His jockey, Assael Espinoza, and trainer, Tim McCanna, had been strangers to the Santa Anita winner’s circle as this season got under way after Christmas. The fact Friday’s sixth race is an $8,000 claiming race, near the bottom of the Arcadia track’s class ladder, might have suggested the field of eight lacked reliable betting options.
But handicappers have learned a few things in watching the horses and horsemen who have migrated south to Santa Anita amid the closure of Golden Gate Fields, the failure of a fall meet at Pleasanton and the discontinuation of racing at the summer county fairs, and Almost Snow and his connections reflect some of the lessons.
Bob Mieszerski and I both picked Almost Snow to win Friday’s race in this newspaper’s online consensus box, while Eddie Wilson picked him second and Mark Ratzky picked him third. Morning-line maker Jeff Siegel made Almost Snow the 3-1 second choice behind 2-1 Mobe Town, a two-time winner at Santa Anita.
“I think they can compete in some cases at the lower levels,” Mieszerski, the Southern California News Group papers’ lead handicapper, said of the Northern California horses.
I asked several prominent handicappers how to tell if the horses from up north can win down south, mixed their insights with my own observations, and came up with several factors to look for:
Class: “Generally speaking, horses from lower-class circuits up against it against horses at higher-class circuits,” said Brad Free of the Daily Racing Form, and that’s borne out by my unofficial count showing a win rate of less than 5% for horses who made their previous start up north and face opponents who’ve been running at Santa Anita.
Free suggests looking at northern horses’ speed figures to see if they measure up, but cautions that horses can struggle to reproduce high figures when they encounter the faster paces of higher-class races.
In Almost Snow’s case, McCanna is smartly dropping his horse from the $12,500 claiming level at which he won at Pleasanton to $8,000 at Santa Anita, and speed figures say he’ll compete well with Mobe Town.
Workouts: The handicappers agree that a horse arriving from another track can only be helped by having a workout at Santa Anita to get used to the running surface before racing there.
A workout at Santa Anita has appeared in the past-performance charts of the vast majority of the northern horses who’ve won at Santa Anita so far. Almost Snow has two works at Santa Anita.
Jon Lindo, the handicapper, horse owner and “Thoroughbred Los Angeles” radio host, adds that gaining familiarity with the track can help horses making their second starts at Santa Anita: “They will have a chance for major improvement.”
Jockeys: Mieszerski recommends Assael Espinoza and William Antongeorgi III as northern regulars with the best chance of competing with more acclaimed riders at Santa Anita.
Espinoza is tied for 10th in wins at Santa Anita with five (10% of his starts), while Antongeorgi has four wins (13%) and Frank Alvarado has three (11%). Manuel Americano, an apprentice who has begun riding at Santa Anita, won 26% at the last Pleasanton meet.
Trainers: McCanna has been the most successful of the northern trainers at Santa Anita so far, with five wins (19%). Andy Mathis, Blaine Wright, O.J. Jauregui, Isidro Tamayo and Steve Sherman – all among the leaders at Pleasanton – have also impressed Santa Anita handicappers, meaning their horses will show up in races they can win.
They “should have the best idea of where their horses fit,” Lindo said.
Predictability: Contrary to the understandable assumption that cheaper horses are less predictable, the lower-level races being carded at Santa Anita to suit the northern arrivals are being won by post-time favorites more than 50% of the time.
Frank Scatoni, the online handicapper and Del Mar seminar host, said he likes low-level claiming horses in part because they usually have more form to go on.
“Secondly, low-level horses go in and out of form a lot more frequently than classy horses do,” Scatoni said. “If you’re able to spot the beginning of a decline of an improvement before everyone else does, you can find some really big prices.”
The big non-handicapping question is whether Santa Anita is helping or hurting its product by lowering its class floor by include $5,000 claimers and $8,000 maiden claimers.
“I do think it degrades the racing at Santa Anita, which has been branded The Great Race Place,” said handicapper Bob Ike (BobIkePicks.com), who compared a pair of $5,000 races Sunday to “a Single-A doubleheader at Yankee Stadium.”
But the handicappers think the changes are needed to allow northern horses to race at Santa Anita and help the track fill its programs.
“The quality has declined in recent years, and I don’t really think it matters to many horseplayers,” Mieszerski said. “They’d rather have a field of 10 $5,000 claimers than a stakes or allowance with five or six runners (from) two or three trainers.”
Eddie Wilson, who leads the SCNG consensus handicappers in winners at Santa Anita, goes farther: “I’ve enjoyed handicapping those races. They offer a challenge.”
Follow horse racing correspondent Kevin Modesti at X.com/KevinModesti.