After rain-soaked delay, Santa Anita gallops back into action on opening day

After dodging the puddles during a particularly wet week, Santa Anita Park’s opening day finally arrived Sunday for its annual Classic Meet. Throngs of racing fans arrived, too, at the iconic Arcadia park.

Sunday’s card featured six graded stakes races, highlighted by the Grade I Malibu Stakes on a mild Sunday with no sign of sprinkles. And it was a sunny day indeed for trainer Bob Baffert, whose horses Nysos and Nevada Beach captured first and second place in the Grade 2 Pincay Stakes. And his horses also won two Grade 1 events, as Usha won the La Brea and Goal Oriented finished first in the Malibu.

Star of the day Nysos was a heavy favorite, going off at 1-5, having won six of his seven previous starts.

“I’m here to see Nysos,” said racing fan Dion Williams of Seattle, enjoying his first trip to the landmark park. “I’ve been to Del Mar and Emerald Downs and Churchill Downs. Santa Anita’s definitely this biggest. Well, maybe the same as Churchill Downs.”

He added: “It was really nice. We got calendars. Was it exciting? Of course!”

The first day of racing generally arrives on the day after Christmas. But Mother Nature got in the way this year. Last week, with heavy rain forecast all week, park officials announced they were delaying “Extended Christmas.”  Friday’s scheduled opening day of Santa Anita Park racetrack’s Classic Meet was postponed until Sunday.

“With the amount of rain being forecast, it’s important to make this call as early as possible to give everyone advance notice,” Santa Anita General Manager Nate Newby said. “Everyone looks forward to Opening Day as it’s traditionally one of our biggest days of the year, so it’s not a decision we make lightly. But after speaking with our stakeholders, adjusting the racing schedule at this time provides the best opportunity to have a great opening to kick off the season.”

The park drew its largest Opening Day crowd since 2016 today, 41,962, its most for a Sunday opener since 1999, the Arcadia track announced.

“Opening Day is very important to create momentum for the season, and today’s large crowd provided terrific energy,” Nate Newby, Santa Anita Park’s senior vice president and general manager, said in a statement.

Santa Anita Park has had three Sunday openers since 1999 — 2004, 2010 and 2021 — and eight in its 91-year history. Sunday horse racing in California was prohibited before 1973.

The 11-race card included six graded stakes races.

Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Nysos defeated his Baffert-trained stablemate Nevada Beach by a head in the $200,000 Grade 2 Laffit Pincay Jr. Stakes.

The victory in the 1 1/16 mile-race for 3-year-olds and up was the seventh in eight starts for the 4-year-old, who finished in a dead heat for second in the Grade 1 Churchill Downs Stakes May 3, a neck behind Mindframe, for his only loss.

Nysos was ridden by Flavien Prat, whose 74 victories in stakes races are the most among North American jockeys in 2025.

Pincay presented the trophy, one day before the Hall of Fame jockey’s 79th birthday.

Baffert also won the $300,000 seven-furlong Grade 1 La Brea Stakes for 3-year-old fillies with Usha, and saddled the first- and second-place finishers, Goal Oriented and Midland Money, in the seven-furlong $300,000 Grade 1 Malibu Stakes for 3-year-olds.

Hall of Famer Mike Smith rode Cabo Spirit to the victory in the $200,000 Grade 2 San Gabriel Stakes for 3-year-olds and up at 1 1/8 miles on turf. Antonio Fresu won the Grade 2 $200,000 Mathis Mile on turf with Hiding In Honduras.

Fresu was taken to Huntington Hospital in Pasadena when he injured his left foot two races later when his boot was squeezed in between his horse and the rail during the running of the race.

Kazushi Kimura replaced Fresu aboard Ambaya in the $300,000 Grade 1 American Oaks, guiding her to victory in the 1 1/4-mile race for 3-year-old fillies on the downhill turf course. The victory was Ambaya’s first since she won her debut in a maiden special weight race June 12 at Horseshoe Indianapolis in Shelbyville, Indiana, five races ago.

The Arcadia track’s revised opening week schedule has live racing Dec. 28-29, and Dec. 31-Jan. 4. Three day racing weeks will launch on Jan. 9 and continued until April 5. Racing will be held Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays — with additional racing cards planned on Jan. 19 and Feb. 16.

The biggest racing days on the calendar are coming:

–Saturday, Jan. 17: The Cal Cup;

–Saturday, Feb. 7; the D. Wayne Lukas and Robert B. Lewis stakes;

–Saturday, March 7: the Santa Anita Handicap, Kilroe Mile, Beholder Mile, San Felipe Stakes; and

–Saturday, April 4: the Santa Anita Derby and Santa Anita Oaks stakes races.

SCNG’s Keith Birmingham and City News Service contributed to this report