By: Teri Muse

Pete Siberell from Santa Anita Race Track presented the club favorite program on what’s new at the race track and a look at the jockeys and trainers for the 2019 line up. Pete gave a little background on the history of owners and some fun facts: Santa Anita holds races 4 days a week which is about 120 live races per month with 8-10 races being held each day consisting of between 7-8 horses per race. On an average about 8,000 people visit the park each day but the population can reach 50,000 guests at the peak time.

The Breeders Cup will return to Santa Anita once again in November and to prepare for the big event, they are renovation large amounts of the seating to be tables with seats so guests can enjoy a dining experience while they watch the horse races. To pull off the Breeders Cup, the park needs about 300 volunteers to help with all areas from owner escorts, guest photographers to greeters. Contact Pete if you would like to volunteer.

Coming to Santa Anita is the “North Barns Project” which will be 9 new buildings to help house more than the current 1,800 horses since on-site housing and training of horses = more races. In addition, the park is looking to do horse sales on site at least 2 times per year which will be open to the public and free of charge.

To prepare us for our March 8 Day at the Races event, we were given an up close and personal look at the jockeys and trainers below. George Fasching wasn’t present at the lunch to give his top picks, but he is guaranteed to give us his “expert” advice the day of the races. ….and they’re off!