It was strange waking up the morning after Christmas and heading anywhere but Santa Anita Park. In Southern California, if you still believe in Thoroughbred racing, that's the day you show up and be counted.
The last time the Santa Anita meet opened on any day other than Dec. 26 nobody came. Attendance was officially zero. Not a fan in the house.
Then again, the rainy reason for the two-day delay this time around is blissfully benign compared to circumstances surrounding the winter of 2020. Covid-19 killed more than 63,000 Americans that December alone. The show went on, but for simulcast gambling purposes only, and it was not until March of 2021 that patrons were allowed to return for the live racing experience.
Believe it or not, for the first four years of Santa Anita's existence, the meet opened on Christmas Day, beginning in 1934. This was a gutsy move, typical of the empresario personality embodied by Dr. Charles Henry Strub, a dentist by trade, who put together the partnership that built the million-dollar racetrack just as the Great Depression was picking up steam. Santa Anita was Strub's Christmas present to a local culture bereft of bounty.
As far as competition for the entertainment dollar, Santa Anita was pretty much the best game in town when it first opened its doors. Management made sure the populace was aware with an ad campaign that promised racing "rain or shine" and a grandstand admission price of $1.10 ($3.30 for the clubhouse).
During Christmas week of 1934, moviegoers could show up at Grauman's Chinese in Hollywood to watch Shirley Temple, age 6, in "Bright Eyes" or head for the 4 Star Theater on Wilshire near La Brea for Helen Hayes and an all-star cast in "What Every Woman Knows." On Christmas Day itself, there were State League soccer matches at Loyola Stadium, featuring a team sponsored by actor Victor McLaglen, while professional winter baseball was represented with a Christmas Day doubleheader at White Sox Ball Park in South L.A. There were no Rams, no Chargers, no Lakers, and only the preparation for a Stanford-Alabama Rose Bowl to distract from the ponies.
The idea of opening the day after Christmas was not a reality until 1949. As a marketing ploy, the date proved golden, and the 26th still has legs. Weather is ever a key to success, but the day of the week matters just as much. With Christmas on a Sunday in 1960, the opening day crowd that Monday numbered 71,012. Four years later, the Saturday opening drew 70,023. Last year's announced attendance on a Thursday was 37,143.
For Michael McCarthy, opening day at Santa Anita was among the rituals of his youthful years growing up in Arcadia, Calif. Now, it's another work day, although busier than most, with Sunday's array of good races that fit neatly with the occupants of his bursting Santa Anita stable.
"We moved here in the summer of '76," McCarthy said. "And in those days, if you wanted to go on opening day you had to get out of your house early, otherwise the traffic was so bad you were pretty much locked in."
The McCarthy stable has had its best season ever in 2025 with earnings approaching $10.4 million. Of that, just shy of $4.2 million was earned by Journalism, winner of the Preakness Stakes (G1), the Haskell Stakes (G1), and the Santa Anita Derby (G1) to go along with seconds in the Kentucky Derby (G1), Belmont Stakes (G1), and Pacific Classic Stakes (G1).
The trainer will try to add to his total on opening day with eight entries and one also-eligible spread around five races.
"It's only good if you're competitive," McCarthy said. "If you're not, it's not real fun. It'll be okay, as long as we don't throw a shutout."
McCarthy is taking swings in three stakes on the program, including the 7-furlong La Brea Stakes (G1) for 3-year-old fillies with Simply Joking, who drew the rail. While trained by Whit Beckman in the Midwest, the daughter of Practical Joke won the Letellier Memorial Stakes in her first start, then came right back to take the Silverbulletday Stakes and finish second in the Fantasy Stakes (G2).
Simply Joking could not handle the messy track in the Kentucky Oaks (G1) and she had a nightmare trip in the Raven Run Stakes (G2), her first start for McCarthy. But a second to the accomplished older filly Hope Road in the Bayakoa Stakes (G3) at Del Mar in November was encouraging. She races for the partnership of Grantley Acres, Ryan Conner, CMNWLTH, and Berkels0813.
"Obviously we would have preferred to have drawn a little farther outside," McCarthy said. "She's a quality filly that does everything right. Her owners want to see how she stacks up out here in grade 1 races like the La Brea and the Beholder Mile, so we'll see how that turns out."
McCarthy also is looking forward to the return of Stark Contrast in the Eddie Logan Stakes on New Year's Eve. In his last appearance, the 2-year-old son of Caravaggio gave European champion 2-year-old colt Gstaad a scare in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf (G1T), falling three-quarters of a length short at odds of 58-1.
"I did think that price was a little out of line," McCarthy said, barely hiding his amusement. "He'd won the stakes here at Santa Anita pretty handily, and I told anyone who asked how well he was doing going into the Breeders' Cup.
"Since then he's put on a little bit of weight, and he's been training as well as he did before the Breeders' Cup," he added. "If he's the kind of horse we think he is, it's kind of unfortunate we'll have to go on the road with him, as well as a lot of the others. There's no better place to train than California. But when you have to choose between running for $100,000 in your backyard or three, four, or five times that amount somewhere else, it's not doing anyone any favors."
Journalism will be one of those horses who must leave California when the time comes to find purses that justify his considerable talents. Earlier this year, he won the San Felipe Stakes (G2) and Santa Anita Derby en route to his fulsome Triple Crown campaign. McCarthy has been getting regular updates on the son of Curlin , who will be racing as a 4-year-old for the group headed by Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners.
"All is well with Journalism," McCarthy declared. "He is in light training at Bridlewood Farm in Ocala. He will be back in training at Santa Anita in mid-January."
If nothing else, the return of Journalism to Southern California will be a welcomed distraction from the grim January anniversary of the 2025 fires that turned the greater Los Angeles area into two-headed inferno. While one conflagration destroyed huge swaths of Pacific Palisades to the west, McCarthy and his family had to evacuate their home in the town of Altadena, to the east of downtown L.A., as flames swept through beloved suburban neighborhoods.
The McCarthy home survived, although 6,000 were lost. They were only able to return in the last couple of months because of severe smoke damage and the polluted environment generated by the massive clean-up process.
"It's good to be back here," McCarthy said. "But there's not a whole lot of lounging around. Anything that was porous had to go—furniture, carpeting, the works. There's a couple of beach chairs, but not much else yet."
But at least there was Christmas.
"And a real tree," McCarthy said. "That was happening, come hell or high water."
