SANTA ANITA LEADERS
(Through Sunday)
Jockeys / Wins
Juan Hernandez / 12
Flavien Prat / 11
Umberto Rispoli / 8
Tiago Pereira / 5
Frankie Dettori / 5
Kazushi Kimura / 5
Trainers / Wins
Bob Baffert / 7
Mark Glatt / 6
Phil D’Amato / 5
Michael McCarthy / 5
Jeff Mullins / 4
UPCOMING STAKES
SANTA ANITA
Saturday
• $175,000 Unusual Heat Turf Classic, 4-year-olds and up, 1⅛ (turf)
• $175,000 California Chrome California Cup Derby, 3-year-olds, 1 1/16 miles
• $175,000 Leigh Ann Howard California Cup Oaks, 3-year-old fillies, 1 mile (turf)
• $125,000 Don Valpredo California Cup Sprint, 4-year-olds and up, 6 furlongs
• $125,000 Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Turf Sprint, fillies and mares, 4 and up, about 6½ furlongs (turf)
Sunday
• $100,000, Grade III Las Cienegas Stakes, fillies and mares, 4 and up, about 6½ furlongs (turf)
DOWN THE STRETCH
• The most competitive of the five California Cup stakes at Santa Anita on Saturday should be the Unusual Heat Turf Classic Stakes. Coalinga Road (Umberto Rispoli riding), the 2023 winner of this race, is one of seven stakes winners in the 11-horse field. Others include Fast Buck (Diego Herrera), a Grade III winner; On the Whim (Tiago Pereira), 2 for 2 in Cal-bred stakes, and Old Pal (Antonio Fresu), a stakes winner at this course and distance.
• California-based horses made the cut in five of the 10 equine championship divisions when top-three vote-getters for the 2024 Eclipse Awards were announced Sunday. They include multiple Californians among older males on dirt (Full Serrano, National Treasure, Straight No Chaser), male sprinter (Straight No Chaser, The Chosen Vron) and 2-year-old male (Citizen Bull, Gaming), and lone West Coast hopes for older female on dirt (Adare Manor) and male on turf (Johannes). Horse of the Year finalists weren’t announced, but Thorpedo Anna made the top three for 3-year-old filly and Sierra Leone for 3-year-old male, and they deserve to finish in that order for the big prize when Eclipse Awards are presented Jan. 23 in Palm Beach, Fla.
• Citizen Bull, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner at Del Mar and the all-but-certain 2-year-old male champion, is aiming for a 3-year-old season debut in the Feb. 1 Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita, trainer Bob Baffert said.
• Nominees for the George Woolf Award, honoring a different jockey each year for quality on and off the track, include Juan Hernandez, Southern California’s perennial wins leader, and Brian Hernandez Jr., rider of likely Horse of the Year Thorpedo Anna and Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan in 2024. Others are Kendrick Carmouche, James Graham and Alfredo Juarez. The award will be voted on by the nation’s jockeys and presented at Santa Anita later in the season.
• Rockin With Energy’s victory (paying $18) with jockey Henry Reynoso Lopez in Sunday’s Charger Bar Handicap at Los Alamitos was the first Grade I win for the 4-year-old mare and the record-extending sixth in that race for Quarter Horse Association Hall of Fame trainer Paul Jones.
— Kevin Modesti