And they’re off!

Santa Anita Park launched its 90th anniversary season on Thursday, Dec. 26, drawing big holiday crowds to take in the annual horse-racing post-Christmas spectacle, set to the backdrop of the San Gabriel Mountains on a clear, crisp winter day.

This year was particularly special, given the 90th year of the iconic track.

This is where Seabiscuit won the Santa Anita Handicap in 1940. It’s where Spectacular Bid won the Malibu Stakes in track record time. It’s where Bill Shoemaker retired as the world’s winningest rider in “The Legend’s Last Ride.” The list definitely goes.

And while over its 90 years the track has been the site of classic horse-racing moments, back in Hollywood’s heyday, it was the place to be seen.

Luminaries at the site included Clark Gable, Betty Grable, Lou Costello and Marlene Dietrich, according to the Arcadia Historical Society.

And there’s the dark side of that history, too – such as when Santa Anita Park was an assembly center as the government processed Americans of Japanese ancestry, who were then sent to internment camps, according to the Historical Society.

The park and the city around it, of course, are different places now, given time. But that opening-day buzz filled the air Thursday.

Many came to see 2024 Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan run in the $300,000, Grade I Malibu Stakes, the featured of the six graded stakes races on the 11-race card.

Despite all eyes on Mystik Dan, the horse finished last, far behind first-place finisher Raging Torrent, who stormed to the finish in the eighth race.

The race was Mystik Dan’s first since finishing eighth in the Belmont Stakes, the third jewel of thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown, on June 8.

Mystik Dan won the Kentucky Derby by a nose over Sierra Leone as an 18-1 shot, then finished second in the Preakness Stakes, 2¼ lengths behind Seize the Grey.

Mystik Dan was the first reigning Kentucky Derby winner to race at the subsequent Santa Anita winter-spring meet since California Chrome in 2015.

Fans with paid admission happily received a wall calendar featuring the 13 greatest moments in Santa Anita history while supplies lasted.

The first 1,200 fans also snagged a free Laffit Pincay Jr. print, which the Hall of Fame jockey was set to autograph. Fans were encouraged (but not required) to make a donation to the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund.

Among his accomplishments, Pincay once won seven races on a nine-race Santa Anita card.

He won a then-world record 9,530 races during a career that spanned from 1966 to 2003 and is third on the all-time list behind Jorge Ricardo, who had 13,069, and Russell Baze, who had 12,842. Pincay’s 2,860 victories are the most in Santa Anita history.

Santa Anita announced earlier this year it had renamed the San Antonio Stakes as the Laffit Pincay Jr. Stakes. Pincay will join fellow Hall of Fame jockeys Bill Shoemaker and Eddie Delahoussaye with a Santa Anita stakes race named in their honor.

“It really means a lot,” Pincay said. “I remember when Shoemaker and Delahoussaye had a stakes named for them and I thought that was very special. Now I get the chance to have one in my name.”

Pincay won the San Antonio Stakes five times. His first victory came in 1968 aboard Rising Market for trainer Ted Saladin.

“Rising Market also gave me my first victory ever at Santa Anita,” Pincay recalled. “I beat Shoemaker by a nose. I remember in the stretch I was in front, but then he went by me. I switched my stick to my left hand and he responded really well. I think that race helped me so much. From then on, I was getting on better horses.”