SANTA ANITA LEADERS
(Through Thursday)
Jockeys / Wins
Kyle Frey / 10
Hector Berrios / 8
Umberto Rispoli / 8
Edwin Maldonado / 7
Juan Hernandez / 7
Trainers / Wins
Mark Glatt / 8
Librado Barocio / 5
Phil D’Amato / 5
(Seven tied) / 4
WEEKEND STAKES
SANTA ANITA
Saturday
• $100,000 Santa Barbara Stakes, fillies and mares, 4-year-olds and up, 1½ miles on turf
Sunday
• $100,000 Lazaro Barrera Stakes, 3-year-olds, 7 furlongs
LOS ALAMITOS
Saturday
• $35,000 Dillingham Handicap, 3-year-old quarter horses, 400 yards
Sunday
• $256,200 Robert Adair Kindergarten Futurity, 2-year-old quarter horses, 300 yards
DOWN THE STRETCH
• Leading Los Alamitos quarter-horse trainer Monty Arrossa seeks his fourth consecutive victory in the Robert Adair Kindergarten Futurity, one of the Orange County track’s richest events of the year, when top qualifier Fear N Fridays and jockey Armando Cervantes compete Sunday in the 300-yard race for 2-year-olds. Arrossa won the past three runnings of the Kindergarten with the fillies Fire Fast Honey, Valiantli and Double Down 123.
• Santa Anita’s weekend highlight is the Santa Barbara Stakes. Trainer Phil D’Amato will try to win a stakes for the third weekend in a row, sending out Musical Rhapsody, Comanche Country and Milagre Do Sol in the turf marathon.
• Santa Anita’s Friday card features a $104,580 carryover in the pick six, the result of a string of upsets on Sunday that included the win by 17-1 Visually and jockey Edwin Maldonado for trainer Librado Barocio in the Senorita Stakes.
• Those upsets are part of a form reversal for betting favorites at Santa Anita. After winning a higher-than-normal 46% of races for most of the Santa Anita season, favorites are winning a lower-than-normal 23.5% since April 5.
• Bob Baffert said Prince of Monaco, one of two horses to win a race against Muth, could run in the Woody Stephens Stakes on the Belmont Stakes undercard June 8. The trainer said unbeaten Nysos, out since February, could return to racing in the fall.
• Santa Anita stewards alerted jockeys that, after a warning period, they were starting May 5 to enforce a Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Authority rule requiring riders to have their hands on a horse’s neck when they tap the shoulder with the whip. Such taps count toward the maximum of six strikes allowed during a race, and 10 or more strikes will result in disqualification.
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• Churchill Downs stewards responded to – but hardly eliminated – controversy about their failure to post an inquiry sign after the contact in the stretch between Kentucky Derby runner-up Sierra Leone and third-place Forever Young. Their statement said they conducted a “standard review of the race” and found “no incidents that altered the finish of the race.” But they ordered Sierra Leone jockey Tyler Gaffalione to review video with them – of the non-incidents? – raising the possibility of discipline.
• Nobody cares about racing, huh? Kentucky Derby viewership peaked at 20.1 million people and averaged 16.7 million for the entire show Saturday, making it the largest Derby audience since 1989 and the most-watched program on NBC since the NFL playoffs in January. NBC and Churchill Downs have extended the network’s Derby coverage through 2032.
— Kevin Modesti