Santa Anita keeps spring-level purses for autumn meet

Santa Anita will open its autumn meet on Sept. 25 with spring-level purses still in place, a move that gives owners and trainers a stronger reason to keep horses in California instead of shipping them elsewhere for the fall. The track’s maiden races will be worth $65,000, up from $60,000 at the 2025 autumn meeting, and many overnight categories will rise by $1,000 to $5,000.

Vice president and general manager Nate Newby told the California Horse Racing Board in Sacramento on July 8 that the fall meet will match the higher purse structure used in the spring, rather than slipping back to the lower levels that marked the previous two autumn meets. Some divisions will stay at 2025 fall levels, but the overall direction is upward, a signal that Santa Anita wants its September-to-November season to remain competitive with the spring calendar.

That matters most to the horse population that fills the overnight races: maidens, claimers, and horses that can be kept stabled in Southern California through the end of the year. A spring-level purse sheet can change campaign planning for those barns, shaping whether a horse stays put for a local spot or heads out to look for bigger money elsewhere. It also supports field size and race quality at a meet whose first two weekends are usually loaded with Breeders’ Cup prep races.

Santa Anita’s purse policy has moved back and forth in recent years. The 2024 fall meet carried lower purses than 2023 because of a purse-account deficit, with maiden special weights at $54,000. By the 2025 autumn meeting, those races had rebounded to $60,000, and the 2026 version will move up again to $65,000.

The track is also restoring a small but notable wagering option, bringing back a $1 place pick all on the final eight races each day with a 15% takeout. The bet had not been offered since the fall of 2013. Newby said the purse-pool overpayment, which had been as high as $6 million in recent years, has been substantially reduced and he hopes it will be close to zero by the end of the year.

The CHRB licensed the 2026 autumn meeting at its July 8 session, and Santa Anita now heads into a meet that carries extra weight after the just-completed winter-spring season drew more than 540,000 fans and generated $708,112,231 in all-sources handle. That season also marked the sixth straight year daily handle topped $9 million, and TOC president Bill Nader said the spring maiden allowance purse was up more than 20% from two years earlier.