SANTA ANITA LEADERS
(Through Monday)
Jockeys / Wins
Antonio Fresu / 23
Umberto Rispoli / 16
Hector Berrios / 16
Armando Ayuso / 16
Juan Hernandez / 15
Trainers / Wins
Phil D’Amato / 17
Steve Knapp / 12
John Sadler / 11
Bob Baffert / 9
Mark Glatt / 8
UPCOMING STAKES
SANTA ANITA
Saturday
• $200,000, Grade III Triple Bend Stakes, 3-year-olds and up, 7 furlongs
Sunday
• $100,000 Desert Stormer Stakes, fillies and mares, 3 and up, 6 furlongs
DOWN THE STRETCH
• The weekend stakes at Santa Anita have small fields but big horses. In Saturday’s five-horse Triple Bend, the final graded-stakes-level sprint of the winter-spring meet, Bob Baffert-trained 4-year-old Nysos (Juan Hernandez riding) returns to the track where he made his mark at 3, Mark Glatt’s Dr. Venkman (Antonio Fresu) makes his 5-year-old debut, and George Papaprodromou’s Spirit of Makena (Kyle Frey) seeks to repeat his 2023 win in this race. In Sunday’s four-horse Desert Stormer, Grade I winner Sweet Azteca (Hernandez) makes her first start since moving from Michael McCarthy to Richard Baltas; her ostensible competition is led by Rafael DeLeon’s Chismosa (Frey), the 2024 winner of this sprint.
• Santa Anita executives declined to say if the track bid to host upcoming Breeders’ Cups before the event was awarded to Keeneland in 2026 (Oct. 30-31) and Belmont Park in 2027 (Oct. 29-30). Santa Anita – the Breeders’ Cup site 11 times, more than anywhere else – said in a statement that “we are continuing to discuss future opportunities to host” the event. Del Mar hosts the 2025 Breeders’ Cup on Oct. 31-Nov. 1. The following two years will mark the first time California is passed over twice in a row since Churchill Downs hosted in 2010-11.
• Post positions and morning-line odds for the June 7 Belmont Stakes will be set Monday at Saratoga, site of the race during construction at Belmont Park. Journalism, the Preakness winner and Kentucky Derby runner-up, is one of six horses listed as “probable” to be entered, along with Derby winner Sovereignty and third-place Baeza – both of whom skipped the Preakness – and Rodriguez, Hill Road and Heart of Honor.
• Kendrick Carmouche, who will receive the George Woolf Memorial Award in a winner’s-circle ceremony Saturday, is named to ride seven horses at Santa Anita on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The New York-based Carmouche was chosen by peers nationwide for the award, given to a different jockey each year by Santa Anita in recognition of distinction on and off the track. The award is named for the Seabiscuit jockey who died in an accident at Santa Anita in 1946.
• Seismic Beauty’s five-length win with Fresu in Sunday’s Santa Margarita Stakes, covering 1⅛ miles in 1:48.30, earned the Bob Baffert-trained 4-year-old filly a Beyer speed figure of 104, the highest in 2025 for a female in a race of more than 1 mile, according to the Daily Racing Form leaderboard. Kopion has higher figures at shorter distances.
• Skippylongstocking’s victory with Irad Ortiz Jr. in Monday’s Hollywood Gold Cup lifted the 6-year-old into the National Thoroughbred Racing Association rankings this week at No. 11.
• At Los Alamitos, Shiny New, with Ruben Lozano riding for trainer Valentin Zamudio, posted easily the fastest qualifying time (17.468 seconds) in Sunday’s 350-yard trials for 10 spots in the June 15 Ed Burke Million Futurity. Vyper, under Cruz Mendez for Jose Flores, was next at 17.679.
• The racing world is mourning the death of trainer Christophe Clement from cancer at age 59. Best known for 2014 Belmont Stakes winner Tonalist and 2009-10 champion turf horse Gio Ponti, the French-born Clement recorded $184.1 million in purse earnings, 11th all-time in North America and the most by a racing Hall of Fame-eligible trainer who’s not yet elected. In a statement posted on Clement’s X account after his death, he thanked his family, staff, owners and horses and said: “As I reflect on my journey, I realize I never worked a day in my life. … Being a racehorse trainer is far more than a profession, horses have brought me fulfillment, friends and such wonderful memories.”
• The deaths of the maiden 3-year-old filly Crimson Sea and unraced 2-year-old filly Made Perfect Cents, both the result of injuries in training Sunday at Santa Anita, were the 14th and 15th from all causes in racing and training at Santa Anita and Los Alamitos since the start of the Santa Anita season Dec. 26. That’s two more deaths than occurred in the same period in 2023-24, and in line with the average for the five previous years since the California Horse Racing Board began fatality data in 2020.
— Kevin Modesti
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