Flatter: Making a Christmas list, and it starts with Santa Anita

Late word from the North Pole, a.k.a. Notre Dame Stadium on playoff night. Santa Claus, a first-string reindeer coxswain, put his name into the transfer portal to look for a better NIL deal in a warmer climate.

Because of collective bargaining with the elves union and the guidelines of the Reindeer Integrity and Safety Authority, I was told I was the next man up to make a holiday list.

I will eschew naughty and nice, if only to make this sleigh of a column fly.

A day-after Christmas package. The Santa known as Anita is displaying a magnificent card on the occasion of its 90th anniversary. The actual grand opening was Christmas 1934, so this is the 91st opening day, but now is not the time to pick nit. Better to pick a winner in the Grade 1 Malibu. It is not just that Mystik Dan is there. It is that any Kentucky Derby winner actually could and would win a subsequent race. It is not as rare as a fair-catch field goal, but it feels like it sometimes, what with the recent 0-fers for Mage and Rich Strike and Country House and Always Dreaming. Cutting back to seven furlongs even off a six-month break and especially after a nearly 2,000-mile trailer trip from Louisiana is a lot for trainer Kenny McPeek to ask. I think Breeders’ Cup Sprint runner-up Bentornato is better suited for this one-turn, seven-furlong dash. Regardless, it is a fun-looking race.

An Easter egg for Hanukkah? I really am reaching for metaphors. The second race Thursday at Santa Anita is the package that contains San Saba, another Bob Baffert buzz baby who will make his debut. By Justify out of Hard Spun mare Palace Princess, he already has been bet down to 22-1 in the Caesars Sportsbook Nevada futures to win the Kentucky Derby. That ties San Saba for sixth favorite even before he has left the starting gate. Two bullet works might have caught the eyes of some players. He was hip 1023 at the October’s Fasig-Tipton yearling sale, where ranchers Zane Kiehne and Grier Brunson dropped a session-topping $725,000 to buy him. The two Texas men are quarter-horse mavens who became Thoroughbred newbies by jumping in the deep end of that auction pool.

Don’t say San Saba. Talk about deep in the heart of Texas. Though it’s a part of the Lone Star State, people don’t seem to care. At least not about how to pronounce the town and county and horse by that name. Think of sabotage or Sabatini. It is a short a. When I did radio in Austin, nearby San Saba was one of the first things I was taught about the idiosyncratic language Texan.

Say Johannes next month. That name reckons to be uttered at the Eclipse Awards in Florida. It says here he already has the edge over Carl Spackler in the turf-male division. He would burnish it by winning Thursday in the 1 1/8-mile San Gabriel (G2). Coming back from nearly a year off to let his sore legs heal, Johannes won four consecutive graded stakes. He had his perfect season spoiled by only three-quarters of a length in the Breeders’ Cup Mile. If anyone dared to ask Tim Yakteen if he could get out from the shadow of his old boss Baffert, all he has to do is point to this millionaire and would-be champion and drop the mic.

What about day 2? Going to Santa Anita next week will be like going to the first day of baseball season and seeing a stadium packed full of fans and hope. Then comes the second day, and it feels the Oakland Coliseum. The California Horse Racing Board heard more of the gloomy picture Thursday. “Total handle is down 6% as compared to the first 11 months of 2023,” CHRB executive director Scott Chaney said. A lot of that came from the decline and fall of Northern California, where Golden State Racing threw in the towel after only one fall season in Pleasanton as the successor to Golden Gate Fields. Santa Anita is cutting its bottom-end claiming races to $5,000 in hopes of luring entry-level NorCal horses who otherwise could not compete against the higher class of SoCal. Without an outside revenue source to stop the hemorrhaging from shrinking purses, that is at best a temporary salve. If Santa Anita and Del Mar do not get historic horse-racing machines or something like them outside the gambling monopoly Native American tribes have in California, then they are destined to go the way of the Oakland A’s.

Clean-up on no. 1. There is a postscript to last Thursday’s story of Mama’s Gold, the promising 4-year-old colt who jumped over some liquid waste en route to winning an allowance race at Aqueduct. Let’s grow up here. As the Equibase chart said, it was “a puddle of urine 70 yards from the finish.” That really is what it said. But not anymore. Apparently, someone took umbrage at the expression of bodily function. Look up that chart now, and it says “debris on the track 70 yards from the finish.” Dare I ask who was offended? Perhaps someone who never saw an episode of “Two and a Half Men.”

Riddle me this. What do Aqueduct and Ellis Park have in common? One had a pee patch. The other has a pea patch. That probably works better when it is heard and not seen.

A serious note. It has been 10 days since Breeders’ Cup-winning horseman, mega-bettor and furniture king Jim McIngvale went into Houston Methodist Hospital for open-heart surgery. From what he has posted on social media, it looks like Mattress Mack, 73, is doing well in recovery, even planning a triumphant return to his flagship Gallery Furniture store Friday. Considering all his generous acts when his beloved hometown was socked hard by natural disasters, surgeons probably had an easy time last week. That is because Mack’s heart always has been open.

And another. My Horse Racing Nation colleague Brian Zipse told me early this week that he has had to suspend production on the popular YouTube show HorseCenter. As he subsequently said on X, “It’s with a heavy heart to inform you there will be no HorseCenter for now due to my severe hearing loss. An ongoing issue for a decade, it’s recently taken a turn for the worse. I would like nothing better than to be able to return soon. Thank you for watching all these years.” I hope and pray this is only temporary and for the shortest term. Here is hoping that all that we have enjoyed seeing from Matt Shifman and him every week for nearly 11 years will come back to Brian 100-fold in the form of full hearing.

I will skip past the airing of grievances for Festivus. Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and happy Kwanzaa. Then let’s get rich on Santa Anita.

Ron Flatter’s column appears Friday mornings at Horse Racing Nation. Comments below and at RonFlatterRacingPod@gmail.com are welcomed, encouraged and may be used in the feedback segment of the Ron Flatter Racing Pod, which also is posted every Friday.