Ten Things You Should Know: Santa Monica Stakes
By Kevin Martin, Hello Race Fans Contributing Editor
Originally published on January 26, 2012
1) The Santa Monica Stakes is a 7-furlong race for 4-year-olds and up at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California.
2) The race has been graded since 1973 and is currently run as a Grade 2.
3) The first running of the current incarnation of the Santa Monica Stakes came in 1957. The race has been a part of the Santa Anita winter meet for much of the race’s history and has been a sprint for fillies and mares since 1960.
4) A race named the Santa Monica Handicap was run in 1939 at Santa Anita Park. In 1951, at Hollywood Park, Bewitch beat stable-mate Coaltown in an open race also called the Santa Monica Handicap.
5) Three Racing Hall of Famers have won the Santa Monica: Silver Spoon (1960), Gamely (1969), and Serena’s Song (1996).
6) Silver Spoon, the 1959 3-year-old filly champion, was the daughter of Citation, the eighth Triple Crown winner. She is one of only two fillies to win the Santa Anita Derby and Santa Anita Oaks.
7) The 1972 champion older female, Typecast, won that year’s Santa Monica at 7-furlongs. Later in the year, she beat males on the turf at distances from 1 ½ to 2-miles in the Hollywood Turf Handicap, the Sunset Handicap, and the Man o’War Stakes.
8) The current stakes record on the dirt of 1:20.60 was set by Past Forgetting in 1982. Past Forgetting is also one of three two-time winners of the Santa Monica (the others are Chop House in 1964 and 1965, Pine Tree Lance in 1987 and 1988).
9) Jockey Bill Shoemaker won a record six editions of the race in a span from 1961 to 1985.
10) Trainer D. Wayne Lukas’s six Santa Monica wins in 16 years (1980-1996) are the most by any trainer. His last came with Hall of Famer Serena’s Song.