Santa Anita Park drew its largest Opening Day crowd since 2016 Sunday, 41,962, its most for a Sunday opener since 1999, the Arcadia track announced.
The Arcadia track announced last Sunday the two-day delay of its traditional Dec. 26 Opening Day following a forecast of significant rain in Southern California for Tuesday through Friday.
“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 Bob 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.