Horses and riders launch from the starting gate for the Santa Anita Derby at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia on April 3, 2021. (Photo by Trevor Stamp, Contributing Photographer)
The Stronach Group, just days after announcing plans to permanently close Golden Gate Fields, is now pledging to invest nearly $32 million into Santa Anita Park in an effort to make the Arcadia-based racetrack more attractive to stables from Northern California and beyond.
The investments include $23.2 million in improvements to the barns, living quarters and other facilities that make up the historic racetrack’s backside, $4.5 million for a new synthetic training track, $2.5 million for a new one-mile turf chute, $500,000 for an equine swimming pool and a $1 million fund to support California’s breeders and assist with the relocation of horses from Golden Gate Fields.
Additionally, Stronach will explore the possibility of expanding its racing schedule to four cards a week.
“We are confident that this comprehensive package of important measures will not only bolster the racing, training, owner and fan experience at Santa Anita Park, “The Great Race Place,” but also support Northern California stakeholders through a challenging transition period, and lead the way with state and industry-wide changes that will result in a healthier, competitive and sustainable future for Thoroughbred racing in Southern California,” said Belinda Stronach, chairwoman and chief executive officer of The Stronach Group, in a statement.
The company’s decision to close Golden Gate Fields at the end of the 2023 blindsided trainers, jockeys and stable personnel. Stronach Group executives said during a July 16 announcement that they would be consolidating racing to Southern California and promised to “double down on its prestigious racing and training venues at Santa Anita Park and San Luis Rey Downs.”
During a media briefing about the investment, Craig Fravel, executive vice chair of 1/ST RACING, the Stronach Group’s racing division, acknowledged the impact the closure will have on the industry and said the company is sharing more detailed plans now in the hopes of addressing concerns. Fravel said company officials had planned to announce the closure along with their plan, but the information was leaked before they were ready to discuss it.
He declined to answer questions about the future of the Golden Gate Fields property.
“There are private negotiations going on and sometimes one has to keep things quiet until the last possible moment,” Fravel said. “We hope they understand why it happened the way it did.”
Santa Anita is working with Del Mar, Los Alamitos and San Luis Rey Downs, a private training track in Bonsall owned by the company, to accommodate horses relocating to Southern California. The Stronach Group also is setting aside up to a $1 million fund to provide stipends for jockeys and trainers making the move. The Southern California racing industry is expected to contribute another $400,000 specifically to cover the costs to ship horses from the north.
“I refuse to believe that we can’t find great homes for people to race,” Fravel said.
That doubling down could include an expansion to four days of racing per week, if state regulators sign off on the plan. The California Horse Racing Board, the state’s regulator, is expected to consider Santa Anita’s license during its meeting in October.
Santa Anita would use the expanded schedule to weave in a lineup of “middle-tier” horse races, largely consisting of transfers from Golden Gate that might otherwise struggle against Southern California’s more competitive horses.
“We’re pretty confident that we can put a very good card together,” said Aidan Butler, the chief executive officer of 1/ST RACING, during the briefing.
The physical improvements at Santa Anita will begin with the installation of a synthetic Tapeta training track, similar to what is used at Golden Gate, by the start of the winter-spring meet in December.
“It’s a tight schedule, but we’re committing to do everything we can to make that work,” Fravel said.
Santa Anita previously attempted to use a synthetic track back in 2007, but it returned to dirt three years later because Southern California’s high temperatures melted parts of the synthetic track during the summers and created drainage issues during the rainy season.
The Stronach Group began investigating a switch to synthetic in 2019 in response to a troubling spike in horse deaths at the racetrack a year earlier. A leading theory at the time suggested heavy rains had diminished the consistency of the dirt track and contributed to an uptick in life-threatening injuries.
Santa Anita — and California as a whole — have since implemented several reforms that have dramatically decreased the number of racing deaths annually in the state.
The Stronach Group originally considered swapping the main dirt track to synthetic as well, according to executives, but it decided to wait and see how the training track performs first, in part to avoid creating a jarring change for horses, which are used to running on dirt in this part of the state.
“We’re confident that as a training track, it’s a great option,” Fravel said.
Most of the company’s investment will be spent on the backside over the next three years. Butler said Santa Anita will completely replace barn roofs and renovate living quarters and stalls.
“The initial piece of work is going to be to replace every single roof and outer extremity of the barns,” Butler said. “This is a huge, huge undertaking. We have 2,000 stalls on the backside.”
While there likely won’t be an increase in the number of stalls, the improvements will add higher ceilings that allow for better airflow and breathability for the animals, he said. Part of the cost — estimated at $23.2 million total — will come from needing to complete the project while the backside is in use.
An additional $500,000 will go toward construction of an equine swimming pool that will include water spas and treadmills for the horses, according to Butler.
Once the work is completed, the backside will have “all of the amenities you’d expect” from a new racetrack, he said.
“We’re hoping that will start to attract other horses and horsemen from across the country back,” Butler said.
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