SANTA ANITA LEADERS
(Through Sunday)
Jockeys / Wins
Flavien Prat / 40
Juan Hernandez / 38
Umberto Rispoli / 25
Hector Berrios / 19
Antonio Fresu / 19
Tiago Pereira / 19
Kyle Frey / 16
Trainers / Wins
Mark Glatt / 22
Bob Baffert / 20
Jeff Mullins / 16
Michael McCarthy / 16
Doug O’Neill / 16
Bob Hess Jr. / 12
Richard Baltas / 12
UPCOMING STAKES
SANTA ANITA
Saturday
• $300,000, Grade I B. Wayne Hughes Beholder Mile, fillies and mares, 4-year-olds and up, 1 mile
• $100,000, Grade III San Simeon Stakes, 4 and up, about 6½ furlongs on turf
Sunday
• $100,000 Pasadena Stakes, 3-year-olds, 1 mile on turf
DOWN THE STRETCH
• Saturday’s Grade I race at Santa Anita is a rematch for undefeated Cavalieri (Juan Hernandez riding) and frequent bridesmaid Alpha Bella (Hector Berrios), 1-2 finishers in the La Canada Stakes. But they face challenges from stretching-out Richi (Antonio Fresu) and out-of-state shippers Tarifa (Mike Smith) and Hoosier Philly (Umberto Rispoli). It’s a field of six fillies and mares for the B. Wayne Hughes Beholder Mile. The race was the 1⅛-mile Vanity Handicap in its Hollywood Park days and was renamed for the late racehorse owner and his champion mare, but is casually known as the Beholder.
• Santa Anita has added a racing card Monday, March 17, St. Patrick’s Day. The track lost three days during the fires in January and had made up two with additional Thursdays.
• Kendrick Carmouche has won the 2025 George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award in a nationwide vote by his fellow riders. The award, given by Santa Anita since 1950 and named for the Seabiscuit jockey who died in an accident at the Arcadia track in 1946, honors riders for on- and off-the-track distinction. The Louisiana-born Carmouche, 41, based in New York, had his most productive year in 2024 and began this week 22 wins from 4,000, a milestone reached by 68 North American jockeys.
• The sprinter The Chosen Vron repeated as California-bred Horse of the Year when the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association named its 2024 champions Monday night in Arcadia. Trainer of the Year went to Steve Specht, the Northern California stalwart who announced his retirement in December after his home circuit fell apart. Named to the CTBA Hall of Fame were Amazombie, the 2011 American champion sprinter, his trainer Bill Spawr, and trainer Jay Robbins.
• Locked jumped from No. 5 to No. 2 in the National Thoroughbred Racing Association’s weekly rankings after winning Saturday’s Santa Anita Handicap by a race-record 8½ lengths. White Abarrio remained No. 1, and Thorpedo Anna, Sierra Leone and Straight No Chaser slipped one place each to Nos. 3, 4 and 5.
• Thorpedo Anna, the 2024 North American Horse of the Year, runs Saturday in Arkansas in the 4-year-old’s first start since her Breeders’ Cup Distaff win at Del Mar on Nov. 2. She and jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. start on the rail in a field of seven going 1 1/16 miles in the Grade II Azeri Stakes for fillies and mares at Oaklawn Park, and are 2-5 on the morning line.
• In Los Alamitos quarter-horse racing, the first- and third-fastest times in Saturday’s 400-yard trials for the March 22 Los Alamitos Oaks were posted by Beach Walk and Bold and Beautiful, both with Martin Arriaga riding for trainer Juan Aleman and owner Gentry Farms. Fastest in Sunday’s 400-yard qualifiers for the March 23 Primero Del Ano Derby was Train B Taka, with Edwin Escobedo aboard for trainer Marc Jungers.
• The death of the 3-year-old quarter-horse gelding Low and Fast, from an injury after he finished fifth in the trial won by Train B Taka on Sunday, is the third fatality since Jan. 1 in racing or training at Los Alamitos and the fifth at Los Al or Santa Anita, according to data on the California Horse Racing Board website. Both numbers are lower than those tracks recorded in the same period in 2023 or 2024.
— Kevin Modesti