By DRF.com
DEL MAR, Calif. (Aug. 2, 2024) — The Oak Tree Racing Association, which operated the fall season at Santa Anita for decades, has made a cash infusion of $157,000 to the purses of seven races at Del Mar on Saturday, and plans a similar investment at Santa Anita on Oct. 5.
The funding comes from Oak Tree’s endowment, which also provides annual donations to racing-related charities, officials said.
On Saturday, Oak Tree has provided $100,000 of the $400,000 purse for the Grade 1 Clement Hirsch Stakes for fillies and mares on dirt. In addition, the organization will pay bonuses of $9,500 to the first three finishers of six overnight races. Those funds will be divided equally between owners and trainer and are worth $5,000 for first, $3,000 for second, and $1,500 for third.
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Oak Tree is also providing a $500 gift to the groom of the horse voted as the best turned out in each of the 11 races.
Oak Tree, which ran the autumn meeting at Santa Anita from 1969 until 2009, and later ran race meetings at Hollywood Park and the Alameda County Cair at Pleasanton, was co-founded by the late Clement Hirsch, a prominent California owner and breeder. A race has been held in Hirsch’s honor at Del Mar since 2000, the year he died.
The added prize money on Saturday, and a similar situation at Santa Anita in October, is a welcome addition to purses at California tracks, which have fallen for more than a year because of a decline in handle.
“We recognize that California racing is under a little stress,” said Dr. Rick Arthur, the president of Oak Tree, said in a recent interview. “We have some resources and we’d like to help California racing.”
Arthur, a retired private veterinarian who worked as California’s equine medical director from 2006 to 2020, said Oak Tree’s investment assets allow for monies to be contributed to purses as well as charitable enterprises.
“Hopefully, it will make a difference,” he said.
This fall, the Grade 2 Chandelier Stakes, the leading race for 2-year-old fillies at Santa Anita has been renamed the Oak Leaf Stakes in honor of the Oak Tree Racing Association. The race was known as the Oak Leaf Stakes from its inception in 1969 through 2011 before it was renamed by Santa Anita management.
The Oak Leaf Stakes will be worth $200,000, including $100,000 from the Oak Tree Racing Association, and is part of a program that includes five stakes that are preps for the Breeders’ Cup races at Del Mar on Nov. 1-2. The list of stakes includes the Grade 3 Chillingworth Stakes for fillies and mares at 6 1/2 furlongs.
The Chillingworth Stakes honors the memory of the late Sherwood Chillingworth, a longtime executive vice-president of Oak Tree who died in 2019. The race was named in his honor in 2020.
Clement Hirsch was honored as a Pillar of the Turf by the National Museum of Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. on Friday.