Southern California racing returns to Santa Anita Park with the track’s 2026 Autumn Meet beginning on Sept. 25 and continuing through Nov. 1. For handicappers, Santa Anita’s Autumn Meet is sure to offer plenty of prime betting opportunities and high-quality racing and wagering on both dirt and turf.

In addition to daily top-notch racing at every level, Santa Anita will feature 26 stakes races during its 19-raceday Autumn season. The stakes program will be an important steppingstone for horses preparing for this fall’s Breeders’ Cup with seven “Win and You’re In” races on the calendar.

When handicapping Santa Anita, there are several trends horseplayers should pay attention to in order to improve our chances. Here are some things bettors should watch for this fall.

Get to know “The Great Race Place”

Into the stretch on the dirt track. (Eclipse Sportswire)

Santa Anita’s dirt track can yield some post-position and running style biases useful to handicappers. On the main track, the best way for horses to win Santa Anita dirt sprints is by using early speed because deep closers rarely win. There were 279 dirt sprints run at Santa Anita’s various meets over the past year, and 163 of those races (58%) were won by horses racing on or close to the pace within one length of the early lead. This represents a giant advantage. Stalkers coming from one to four lengths off the pace won 89 dirt sprints accounting for 32%. Closers coming from four or more lengths behind won only 27 of the dirt sprints to account for just 10%. When only races at the most commonly-run distance of six furlongs are considered, the speed bias gets even greater with speed horses winning 95 of the 149 races (64%). Starters won 30% of the six-furlong races and closers won only 6%. Post positions play little role in Santa Anita dirt sprint outcomes.

Early speed is also effective in dirt route races and closers have done even worse than in sprints at Santa Anita over the course of the last year. Santa Anita ran 141 dirt route races with speedy horses racing on or close to the lead winning 82 of the 141 to account for 58.2%. Stalkers won 35.4% of the routes and closers won only 6.4% of the time. Looking at post positions, they do matter in routes. Horses breaking from posts 1-3 won 71 of the 141 dirt routes to account for more than half of the races.

Santa Anita turf trands

Competitive turf racing. (BENOIT photo)

Santa Anita’s turf course is home to some of the best grass racing, and it generally plays fairly to all running styles and running paths, with different types of horses routinely winning races from either on the lead, stalking the pace, or closing. In 214 turf route races run at Santa Anita the past year, horses on or close to the pace won 33%, stalkers coming from one to four lengths off the pace won 35%, and closers won 32%. Horses have fair chances on this course from the various inside, middle, and outside post positions.

Santa Anita has long been a turf sprint epicenter thanks to its 6 ½-furlong downhill turf course, but these days they conduct far more turf sprints from the backstretch turf chute. On the downhill course, with decades of stats to go on, it’s generally accepted that inside posts 1-3 are a disadvantage down the hill. In terms of preferred running styles, speed horses did best with 44% wins from a small sample of 36 downhill turf sprints run the past year.

Flat turf sprints starting on the backstretch have become more frequent at Santa Anita with 172 of those races run the past year. The flat turf sprints mostly play fair in terms of post positions and running styles at all of the various distances, which range from five furlongs to 6 ½ furlongs, with the exception of closers who were at a big disadvantage over the last year. At the most common flat turf sprint distance of six furlongs (117 races), speed horses won 41%, stalkers won 40%, and closers won only 19%. The win percentage for closers fell sharply this past year as opposed to two years ago when closers were able to win a much more competitive 29.8% of the six-furlong flat turf sprints.

Santa Anita top trainers at the Autumn meet

Phil D'Amato (BENOIT photo)

For clues to which trainers might be the best bets at the 2025 Santa Anita autumn meet, the optimal place to look is in the results from the corresponding meet last year.

Phil D’Amato snatched the 2025 Autumn meet trainer’s title away from Bob Baffert with 13 wins (24%) to Baffert’s 12 (29%). D’Amato got over the hump after placing second on the Autumn trainer leaderboard each of the past three years with annual win totals of 15, 11, and 13 from 2022-24. Baffert won the Santa Anita autumn 2024 training title with 14 wins from 44 starters for 32%, and his win percentage at this meet is generally annually untouchable by any other barn. The leading trainer at the 2023 Autumn meet was Mark Glatt with 12 wins. Glatt’s record in 2025 was only 4-for-47 when he suffered from bad luck with 10 seconds and 10 thirds. The rest of the 2025 Santa Aanta Autumn top trainers included familiar names like Doug O’Neill (10 wins, 17%), Steve Knapp (8 wins, 21%), John Sadler (7 wins, 18%), Jeff Mullins (7 wins, 23%), and Michael McCarthy (7 wins, 18%).

If you prefer to draw your comparisons from the recent 2026 Del Mar summer meet, O’Neill enjoyed a standout Del Mar season with 27 wins (21%) to win the training title. Baffert went 17-for-56 for 30%, followed by D’Amato (16 wins, 14%) and Peter Miller, who had 15 wins for 17%.

Santa Anita leading jockeys

Juan Hernandez (Eclipse Sportswire)

In the jockey’s room, Joel Rosario returned to SoCal at Del Mar and won the jockey title with 42 wins, followed by Juan Hernandez second with 37 wins. Based on statistics from last year’s corresponding Santa Anita meet, Hernandez will be tough to unseat this fall. Hernandez won the 2025 Autumn title with 28 wins, claiming a nine-win margin over Umberto Rispoli who finished with 19 wins. Hector Berrios and Kazushi Kimura tied for third last fall with 13 wins apiece at this meet, and those two should win the next-most races again this fall. Antonio Fresu, who was fifth in the meet standings last fall, has moved his tack to New York to ride at Belmont Park this season.