Santa Anita Park

Santa Anita Park is a Thoroughbred racetrack in Arcadia, California, United States. We offer some of the prominent horse racing events in the United States during early fall, winter, and in spring.

Established in 1934.

Santa Anita Park was originally part of “Rancho Santa Anita”, which was owned originally by former San Gabriel Mission Mayor-Domo, Claudio Lopez, and named after a family member, “Anita Cota”. The ranch was later acquired by rancher Hugo Reid, a Scotsman. The property’s most widely known owner would be multimillionaire Lucky Baldwin, a successful businessman in San Francisco who greatly enhanced his wealth through an investment in the famous Comstock Lode. Baldwin became a successful breeder and owner of Thoroughbred racehorses and in 1904 would build a racetrack adjacent to the present site in what is today the city of Arcadia, outside of the city of Los Angeles. On February 4, 1909, the California State Legislature passed an anti-racetrack gambling bill known as the Walker–Otis Law. Similar in its goal to New York State’s 1908 Hart–Agnew Law, the California law resulted in the permanent closing of the Baldwin racetrack. In 1912 the racing facility burned to the ground.