SANTA ANITA LEADERS

(Through Sunday)

Jockeys / Wins

Abel Cedillo / 3

(11 tied) / 2

Trainers / Wins

George Papaprodromou / 6

Mark Glatt / 3

Richard Mandella / 2

Hector Palma / 2

Bob Baffert / 2

Doug O’Neill / 2

WEEKEND STAKES

SANTA ANITA

Saturday

• $300,000, Grade I American Pharoah Stakes, 2-year-olds, 1-1/16 miles

• $200,000, Grade II Oak Leaf Stakes, 2-year-old fillies, 1-1/16 miles

• $200,000, Grade II Rodeo Drive Stakes, fillies and mares, 3-year-olds and up, 1¼ miles on turf

• $100,000, Grade III Chillingworth Stsakes, fillies and mares, 3 and up, 6½ furlongs

• $100,000 Speakeasy Stakes, 2-year-old fillies, 5 furlongs

Sunday

• $100,000, Grade III Zuma Beach Stakes, 2-year-olds, 1 mile on turf

• $100,000, Grade III Surfer Girl Stakes, 2-year-old fillies, 1 mile on turf

• $100,000, Grade III Tokyo City Cup, 3 and up, 1½ miles

LOS ALAMITOS

Sunday

• $35,000 Blane Schvaneveldt Handicap, quarter horses, 3 and up, 400 yards

DOWN THE STRETCH

• The top fillies at Del Mar this summer will try to extend winning streaks Saturday on the Santa Anita card headlined by the American Pharoah Stakes. Two-year-old Tenma (Kazushi Kimura riding), who is 2 for 2 after her Del Mar Debutante victory, faces an Oak Leaf Stakes battle with with Bob Baffert stablemates Nooni (Martin Garcia) and Non Compliant (Juan Hernandez). Three-year-old Iscreamuscream (Hector Berrios), 4 for 4 with victories in the San Clemente Handicap and Del Mar Oaks, goes into the Rodeo Drive to meet Sunset Glory (Umberto Rispoli), herself on a three-race streak. And 4-year-old Sweet Azteca (Hernandez), winner of four straight by a combined 24 lengths, and 3-year-old Hope Road (Kimura), riding a three-race streak, square off in the Chillingworth sprint.

• Subsanador’s win in the $1 million California Crown Stakes last Saturday lifted the 5-year-old Argentina-bred into contention for the $7 million Breeders’ Cup Classic, the main event of the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar on Nov. 1-2. Subsanador joined the top 10s in the Classic prospect rankings by racing media, handicappers and officials (he’s No. 5) and the National Thoroughbred Racing Association rankings voted by media (he’s No. 4). Speed figures for the 1⅛-mile main-track race rate high, Subsanador’s Equibase figure of 124 being No. 5 among stakes performances by older males in North America in 2024 and his 102 Beyer figure being co-No. 21 among all races at 1 mile or more.

• Japan’s Forever Young and jockey Ruisei Sakai overcame a stumbling start to win the Japan Dirt Classic on Wednesday to set the 3-year-old up for the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Forever Young already was No. 3 in the Breeders’ Cup Classic rankings (below Fierceness and City of Troy) after his third-place finish in the Kentucky Derby (behind Mystic Dan and Sierra Leone).

• The Breeders’ Cup announced this year’s post times and wagering menu for this year’s event at Del Mar. The Classic, on Saturday, Nov. 2, is scheduled for 2:41 p.m. – an hour earlier than in 2023 at Santa Anita – with four Breeders’ Cup races before and four more following the main event on a 12-race program starting at 10:05 a.m. The Classic will be the last race in one pick 5 and the first in another. The Juvenile, on Friday, Nov. 1, is set for 4:45 p.m. as the next to last Breeders’ Cup race on a 10-race card with an 11:35 a.m. first post.

• At last Saturday’s California Crown, total handle for the 10 races was $23.4 million, including $5.5 million from Hong Kong, which is included in some California simulcast pools for the first time this year. That’s a record for a single non-Breeders’ Cup day at a Santa Anita autumn meet. Without Hong Kong, the total would have been $17.9 million, a 39.5% increase over the day of the 2023 Awesome Again Stakes (as the California Crown Stakes used to be called) and the biggest non-Breeders’ Cup day at the Santa Anita autumn meet since $18.1 million was bet on the day of the 2016 Awesome Again. Santa Anita reported attendance of 21,812, which would be double the crowd of 10,133 at the track for the corresponding day in 2023, and the highest for the day since a crowd of 25,837 watched the 2010 Goodwood Stakes (an earlier name for the Awesome Again and California Crown stakes).