Santa Anita Park Opening Day this season was December 28, 2019. Mike Smith, Hall of Fame jockey, rode 4 stakes winners, including Omaha Beach for Grade 1 record. The attendance was 35,085.
Santa Anita Park attacks fatal toll through technology. It is the first race track to use the Mile-Pet scanner, developed by the veterinary medicine department at UC Davis. Its purpose is to find things inside a horse's legs and ankles that will cause a problem. It will not eliminate tragic outcomes on the race track but the hope is it will improve safety, keeping unfit horses in the barn and reduce the horse death toll.
District Attorney Jackie Lacey finds no crime or wrongdoing in horse deaths. Prosecutor says there is no evidence owners, jockeys or trainers knowingly raced injured animals at Santa Anita Park over the past year. Since July 2018, 56 horses have died at Arcadia race track. Of those, 34 died while running on Santa Anita's main dirt track. Santa Anita Park averages about 2.04 deaths per 1000 racing starts, according to the Jockey Club. The national average in 2018 was 1.68 deaths per 1000 starts. The District Attorney's report includes 27 recommended changes to improve safety and reduce fatalities. See also same story at Arcadia Weekly, p. 2, December 26, 2019.
Holiday decorations spread the word of "peace" in eight different languages at Arcadia Gardens apartment building. It started as an idea to win an Arcadia Beautiful Holiday Decoration Award at 1011 West Duarte Road, by Barbara Scott.
Horse racing deaths report delayed. California Horse Racing Board (CHRB), the state regulatory board, aims for January 15 release of investigation of Santa Anita Park incidents. The report was supposed to become public before the end of the year. Several new policies and safety regulations were introduced the past year as a result of a public outcry over the horse deaths at Santa Anita. The state is doing more drug testing, more pre-race exams, improving medical record keeping, pushing for new technology. Santa Anita Park installed a PET Scan machine to help identify pre-existing conditions in the fetlock area of a horse. To date, 37 horses have died at Santa Anita Park since December 2018. Despite the deaths, the equine medical director Rick Arthur stressed that the number of fatalities in California is actually decreasing, saying there have been 58 deaths at race tracks across the state in 2019, compared to 67 deaths in 2018.
California Horse Racing Board (CHRB): ban more drugs, release tests. The CHRB wants California Governor Gavin Newsom to pursue changes to state law that would allow the agency to immediately release results of a positive horse drug test and permit more stakeholders, including jockeys and track veterinarians, to access a horse's medical history. Currently, drug test results are confidential. The changes are part of an effort to curb equine deaths and improve safety at California race tracks. Nearly 40 horses have died at Santa Anita Park in the last year.
The Southern California News Group gives grades for affordable housing in area cities. Every city and county in California is required to plan for adequate housing across income levels but actually building those homes is largely a goal rather than a requirement. Arcadia got an overall D Minus grade.
Santa Anita Park: weather could impact track. Santa Anita Park agrees to California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) demand to cancel horse racing in case of inclement weather during the winter-spring meet that begins December 26. Jockey Joel Rosario is mentioned in this article.Gregory Ferraro, new chairman of the California Horse Racing Board, a former race track veterinarian who was appointed to the board by Governor Gavin Newsom earlier this year, pledged the state board would be pursuing stricter regulations than it has in the past.
World War II veteran Joe Sciarra, 95, makes history come alive at Holy Angels School in Arcadia during a Veterans Day assembly. Other veterans in attendance were Julian Andrews, 86 of Temple City (a veteran of the Korean War) and Darren Parsons, 45, a former U.S. Marine.
Chinese-Americans getting political. Residents becoming more active as they back recall of Governor Gavin Newsom and other conservative efforts. Photo shows women gathering signatures outside 99 Ranch Market in Arcadia.
Racehorse Vino Rosso gets Classic victory. Jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr. rode Vino Rosso to win the $6 million Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita Park yesterday.
Breeders' Cup Recap. Attendance on Friday, November 1 was 41,243. Turn blinkers are worn by Storm the Court and the horse wins the $2 million Juvenile race in the Breeders' Cup. In photo jockey Flavien Prat riding Storm the Court and jockey Javier Castellano riding British Idiom.