California

News last week about the loss of this year's GIII Bob Hope Stakes after receiving just three entrants--all from the Bob Baffert stable--wasn't exactly a shock. But is it a canary in the coal mine concerning the health of California's horse inventory? Not on its own. It is, however, one among a flock of important indicators. Growing attention has been spent on the implications from the consolidation of top bloodstock between fewer and fewer stables, with many observing how a greater distribution of horses among more stables would help the...

Four stakes written for juveniles--two each for males and females--will be featured during the upcoming six-day winter meeting at Los Alamitos Race Course in Cypress, California. Live racing will take place Friday through Sunday on consecutive weekends between Dec. 5 and 7 and Dec. 12 and 14. The first of the added-money events is the $200,000 GII Starlet Stakes for 2-year-old fillies and a mile and a sixteenth to be run Saturday, Dec. 6. Its male counterpart, the $200,000 GII Los Alamitos Futurity will be contested on Saturday, Dec. 13...

With more heavy rain in the forecast for southern California, Del Mar has canceled their Friday race card according to a social media post from the track. Additionally, Del Mar has carded an extra race day to be held Monday, Nov. 24. The shift will allow the main track additional time to dry while also enabling the use of the turf course on Sunday and Monday. Friday's cancellation marks the second day in as many weeks as the track also was forced to cancel the Nov. 15 card due to...

A total of 266 yearlings have been catalogued for the Fasig-Tipton California Fall Yearlings Sale to be held Tuesday, Sept. 23, at the Fairplex in Pomona. The single-session auction kicks off at 11 a.m. PT. Sires represented by yearlings in this year's catalogue include Army Mule, Authentic, Clubhouse Ride, Corniche, Cyberknife, Drain the Clock, Early Voting, Good Magic, Grazen, Hard Spun, Justify, Knicks Go, Liam's Map, Maxfield, Maximus Mischief, McKinzie, Nashville, Olympiad, Omaha Beach, Oscar Performance, Practical Joke, Sir Prancelot (Ire), Stay Thirsty, Tiz the Law and Vekoma. The vast...

The nine-day Los Angeles County Fair meeting at Los Alamitos kicks off Friday, June 20 and will run through Sunday, July 6 with three stakes worth a combined $400,000 serving as the highlights, the track announced via press release Monday afternoon. Racing is set to be conducted Friday-Sunday (June 20-22; June 27-29; and July 4-6) all three weeks with post time scheduled for 1:00 p.m. The richest of the stakes races, the $200,000 GII Great Lady M. Stakes, will run Saturday, July 5 as the last of the black-type on...

Major immigration reform has been talked about for decades, but torpedoed legislation is as far as that has gone. Indeed, President Ronald Reagan was still just in his second term when he signed the last comprehensive immigration reform bill successfully steered through Congress. Amid the cavalcade of immigration-related actions that the current administration has sanctioned, however, the possibility has appeared for that trend to be bucked. In the process, it opens the door for some of the nation's backstretch immigrant workforce to potentially find themselves on a new pathway towards...

California Governor Gavin Newsom has appointed Peter Stern to the California Horse Racing Board, the CHRB announced Wednesday. Stern, who will require Senate approval for the appointment, has been Chief Revenue Officer at Skedulo and an Advisor at Berkeley SkyDeck since 2025. Additionally, he held several roles at Authorium from 2024 to 2025, including Advisor and Executive Vice President and was the Co-Founder of VoiceBrain from 2021 to 2023.

In response to a lawsuit filed Thursday by former Santa Anita employee Michael Willman, Santa Anita Park management issued the following statement: "The lawsuit filed by Mr. Willman is baseless and filled with false and misleading claims. Mr. Willman's employment with Santa Anita Park terminated in 2024, five years after the events he references in 2019, for reasons having nothing to do with racetrack safety. Santa Anita Park will vigorously defend itself against these meritless allegations and looks forward to setting the record straight in court, where the truth will...

For the fourth consecutive year, Paul Reddam's Reddam Racing was the leading owner in California by total purse earnings, while Hronis Racing LLC led all California owners by number of victories, according to statistics released Monday by the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC). Runners campaigned in the white-and-blue colors of Reddam Racing in California proved victorious 32 times from 252 starts for total purses of $2,031,442. Among the stable stars were the multiple stakes-winning Stay and Scam, a daughter of Reddam's Square Eddie, who also hit the board in the...

Let's acknowledge straightaway that this cursory look at some (and only some) of the major regional programs can represent little more than a gesture of respect. As a rule, after all, we're talking about stallions that serve an almost exclusively local market, and those that do so best will have a corresponding local reputation that scarcely needs amplifying. Moreover the same caveats apply, here, as to our recent survey of Kentucky options: namely, that the one or two we single out are purely subjective picks; and, above all, that you...

Southern California stallion Bolden (Square Eddie), a dual-surface winner who was undefeated in his racing career, was represented by his firstborn foal born January 4. The bay colt, who was bred by and foaled at Rancho San Miguel in California, weighed in at 125 pounds and is the second foal out of the eight-time winner and $144,010-earner Trina (Peppered Cat). "Bolden is a big, good-looking and classy stallion who has us excited for the future," said Rancho San Miguel owner Tom Clark. "If all the Boldens look like this first...

Actually, 2024 wasn't that bad of a year for horse racing. There were no major scandals and the rate of horses breaking down fell again. At the tracks under HISA's jurisdiction, it looks like the fatality rate for the year will be about 0.84 horses per 1,000 starters. Considering that same rate in 2009, the first year statistics were kept, was 2.00 per 1,000 shows just how far the sport has come. The GI Kentucky Derby was as thrilling a Triple Crown race as the sport has seen in some...