Live Horse Racing Canceled at Santa Anita Park

Author:

Dave Metcalf

Publish Date:

03/04/2020

Experiences:

Our expert in-house tipster

Experiences:

Our expert in-house tipster

Dave is a born writer, with a deep-rooted talent in stringing words together in a way that turns even the driest of stories into a compelling, exciting read. Having written for his college newspaper and local gazette paper, his talent grew to the point he was so in-demand he struggled to manage the freelance clients asking for his time. After eight years writing about horse racing for a variety of different sites and newspapers, Dave chose to write solely for HorseBetting.com and fixed the goal of making the site the best US horse racing resource on the web firmly in his sights.

The spark that ultimately fuelled the path of Dave’s career was a quirk of geography. When he was eight, Dave’s family moved to Lexington, KY, which brought him within a stone’s throw of Keeneland. Dave’s imagination was instantly captured the first time he attended the track, and it remains his favorite place in the world to this day. In 2015, he was particularly delighted to be able to attend the Breeders’ Cup at the track that sparked a lifelong passion.

Dave, who is married with a daughter, has since moved out of Lexington but still lives in Kentucky. As well as horse racing, he is a huge Cincinnati Bengals fan as well as other equine events such as three-day eventing.

Santa Anita Park has become another horse racing venue in the United States that has canceled all live racing.

The track, which is owned by the Stronach Group, was quick to stress that this was a precautionary measure and that there had been no confirmed cases of Covid 19 at the track itself.

“At this time, there are no known cases of the COVID-19 at Santa Anita Park,” the track asserted, in a press release.

“In accordance with instructions received from Los Angeles County Health Department, Santa Anita Park will temporarily close for live racing effective immediately in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

There are still two major tracks in the USA conducting live racing, in the form of Florida’s Gulfstream Park, also owned by the Stronach Group, and Oaklawn Park in Arkansas.

There are also some less major tracks where racing is taking place, all of which are owned by the Stronach Group. They are Golden Gate Fields in northern California, Tampa Bay Downs in central Florida and Remington Park in Oklahoma City.

It looks highly likely that the track will have to cancel the Santa Anita Derby on April 4, a race that usually functions as a warm-up for the Kentucky Derby.

The 750 workers who care for the 1700 horses stabled at the site are working under stringent conditions. Many of the workers live at the track.

The closure comes in the wake of news that there have been have been a total of 1,456 cases of coronavirus, in LA County, with 26 of those people dying.

Only essential personnel have been at the track since March 12, with no spectators allowed in to watch racing.

Turfway Park in Kentucky and Aqueduct in New York have also canceled live racing in recent days.