How in the holy hell did the Graded Stakes committee reinstate the rankings for the Mathis Mile and the American Oaks?
The Mathis Mile, a silly race made up a few years back to honor a horse that did very little in his career aside from upsetting Mr. Purple and Serena's Song in the Big Cap (Sir Beaufort) and that has been so puffed up by the geniuses at Santa Anita that it now ruins the once fairly important San Gabriel (the only one of the 3 turf races on opening day that WAS downgraded) by siphoning off the good turf 3yos that should be taking on their elders by now...
This year's Mathis Mile featured 4 winners of graded turf stakes so I suppose it was a legit grade 2...on turf. But that's moot; the race moved to the main track. It featured exactly NO graded stakes winners on the dirt. It featured only 2 horses that had even ever started in a graded stakes on dirt. Their collective record in those races? 3-0-1-0.
To be fair, the 1-2 finishers did each own one of the few dirt wins in the entire field, those coming in maiden special weight races at Santa Anita earlier in the year.
Law Professor won his MSW in March just before being pummeled by the great turf...er...dirt horse Rock Your World in the SA Derby. That MSW ended up pretty strong, too; collectively aside from the Mathis Mile win there has been 11 victories from the members of that MSW field. Of course, 9 of the 11 victories came on the turf...
Beyond Brilliant also broke his maiden in a MSW, back in June in a 5-horse field. None of the other horses has won back although I think one did hit the board in a subsequent race...and it was even on dirt.
The lesson? Maiden Special Weights at Santa Anita are comparable to Grade 3 races...and Maiden Special Weights originally scheduled for the turf are at the very least similar to Listed Stakes.
I won't bore you with the details of the Grade 1 American Oaks aside from the unimportant fact that the collective dirt record of the entire field was 4-1-0-1. There was not a single horse that started in a graded stakes on the main track.
The only thing I can come up with that justifies the race remaining a Grade 1 is that the sires Honor Code, American Pharoah, Lemon Drop Kid, Medaglia d'Oro, and Empire Maker were represented by offspring in that race and THEY all had won Grade 1 dirt races during their own racing careers.
Either that, or Mike McCarthy has compromising photos of some of the members of the Graded Stakes Committee...
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