In the horse racing world, Dec. 26 is a date worth celebrating - it's opening day of the winter/spring meet at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif.
On Friday, Dec. 26, the Malibu Stakes will kick off a weekend of great races like the La Brea Stakes and the San Gabriel Handicap. So get ready for all the horse racing action with this sneak peek at Santa Anita Park's first races of the season!
The highlight of opening day is the seven-furlong $250,000 Gr. 1 Malibu Stakes for 3-year-olds. Pointed toward this event are heavyweights such as Colonel John, this year's $1M Travers Stakes champion; Georgie Boy, winner of three consecutive graded stakes races this year; and Gayego, the newest Cushion Track record-holder at Hollywood Park. The Malibu Stakes is the first leg of the Strub Series, a three-race event named for Charles H. Strub, who founded Santa Anita Park.
The second leg of the Strub Series is the $150,000 Gr. 2 San Fernando Stakes which will be run on Jan. 17; the series concludes on Feb. 7 with the $250,000 Gr. 2 Strub Stakes. Champion racehorse Spectacular Bid is one of only five horses to have won all three races in the series' history, but with the quality of entries in this year's Malibu Stakes, a Strub Stakes champion could very well be crowned in 2009.
The excitement continues with Saturday's $250,000 Gr. 1 La Brea Stakes for 3-year-old fillies. Like the Malibu Stakes, the La Brea Stakes is the first leg of a three-race event, the La Canada Series. The second leg is the $150,000 Gr. 2 El Encino Stakes which will be run on Jan. 18, and the final leg is the $200,000 Gr. 2 La Canada Stakes on Feb. 15. And like the Strub Series, the La Canada Series crowns champions very rarely - in fact, only three in its history.
This year, Bsharpsonata will be among the hopefuls. In her last outing in graded stakes company, Bsharpsonata finished eighth in the Gr. 2 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes in May. Now trained by Todd Pletcher, she will be facing Santa Anita's synthetic surface for the first time. She did show an affinity for the synthetic Cushion Track at Hollywood Park in her $68,400 Playa del Rey Stakes win on Thanksgiving Day weekend, and will look to build upon that performance on Saturday when she takes on the rest of the La Brea Stakes field.
On Sunday, Dec. 28, all the attention will be focused on the turf oval where the $150,000 Gr. 2 San Gabriel Handicap will take place. Last year's winner of this 1 1/8-mile event, Daytona, went on to win three more graded stakes races, including the Gr. 1 $250,000 Shoemaker Mile Stakes. So stay tuned as 3-year-olds and up prepare for this calendar-ending graded stakes event.
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