A day for the dust to settle

Excuse us for overlooking the importance of yesterday's San Juan Capistrano Handicap run on closing day yesterday at Santa Anita. This has been our favorite race run at Santa Anita since I was a kid and I have always loved the marathon distance run over the turf course. But admittedly, the race has indeed loss a lot of it's luster over the years as the europeans don't ship in as much anymore and the race can sometimes be for higher priced claimers running against one another seeing who can outlast the other. Take for example Skellytown (3rd, 25/1) running off a $25k claim in his last race. But yesterday's race brought back some class to the race, with Bourbon Bay winning.

Bourbon Bay was the first horse in 17 years to have won the Santa Anita San Luis Obispo, the San Luis Rey and the San Juan Capistrano, all marathon turf races, all graded races. The last time a horse accomplished this feat was back in 1993 when Kotashaan took the "series." Astray also won all 3 races in 1974. So Bourban Bay is third horse to accomplish this feat which is worth some recognition for sure. Congratulations to his connections for this feat. As for the europeans returning to the race, well, lets just say that the lone filly entered in the race yesterday didn't inspire many. Going postward at 24-1, Princess Taylor never raised a gallop and finished next to last in the field of 10. Maybe next year we can improve on this area.

Santa Anita was down with figures in all areas when the final numbers were counted.

1. Daily handle was down 15%
2. Overall daily handle was down 11%
3. Track attendance was down 6 %
4. 5 less racing days due to cancelations with rain

Lets hope that track management will elect to bring back the dirt to Santa Anita and fix the drainage situation that has been a huge problem for the start of Oak Tree and run horses over the surface they were meant to run over. Dirt.