Santa Anita renames G1s

[OTM Al]

Wonder what happens at Goodwood with the Oak Tree Stakes.

[Calzone Lord]

Holy Sh!t!

They re-named the Goodwood Stakes the Awesome Again Stakes?

Awesome Again never even raced at Santa Anita in his entire career.

[Calzone Lord]

"This has been an important process for all of us involved with live racing here at Santa Anita," said Rick Hammerle, Santa Anita Vice President of Racing. "We did a lot of research and tried hard to make sure each name had a tangible meaning, either geographically, historically, or culturally. We feel good about the new names

That is funny.

Either Stronach himself wanted a race named after his star Awesome Again, or some weasal made it happen to suck up to his boss.

[Conrad]

Now Del Mar has a race named the Yellow Ribbon?
Confusion reigns in the land of nuts-n-berries

[Calzone Lord]

It seemed utterly pointless to change the names of these races in the first place.

Nice to see they honored Rodeo Drive, though.

I guess they had to compete with Betfair Hollywood Park (track symbol BHP)

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

Holy Sh!t!

They re-named the Goodwood Stakes the Awesome Again Stakes?

Awesome Again never even raced at Santa Anita in his entire career.

easy way to get the name recognition out there without having to pay ala the cliff's edge derby trial.

[Calzone Lord]

The Cliff's Edge at least won a couple of Graded Stakes races at Churchill Downs and competed in the Kentucky Derby as a morning line favorite over Smarty Jones.

If they wanted to honor Stronach ... his Milwaukee Brew is one of just 3 horses in history to win 2 Santa Anita Handicaps (John Henry and Lava Man the other two)

Renaming the Goodwood the Milwaukee Brew would have at least made sense.

Renaming the Goodwood after Awesome Again makes about as much sense as Belmont Park naming a race after Zenyatta.

[Indian Charlie]

It's nice they named a race after a great Doors song!

[10 pnt move up]

I don't believe they had a choice though, Oak Tree had rights to the names of the races, though these names defy logic.

Eddie Logan had a race named after him so that pretty much set the bar

[Merlinsky]

Originally Posted by 10 pnt move up

I don't believe they had a choice though, Oak Tree had rights to the names of the races, though these names defy logic.

They couldn't have all the naming rights though. I mean the Lady's Secret? Monmouth has one albeit ungraded and Rachel won it. It's not like Oak Tree is able to transfer the G1. The race at SA retains it. Would've been nice if the Mosses could've asked them to reconsider which race got renamed.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

The Cliff's Edge at least won a couple of Graded Stakes races at Churchill Downs and competed in the Kentucky Derby as a morning line favorite over Smarty Jones.

If they wanted to honor Stronach ... his Milwaukee Brew is one of just 3 horses in history to win 2 Santa Anita Handicaps (John Henry and Lava Man the other two)

Renaming the Goodwood the Milwaukee Brew would have at least made sense.

Renaming the Goodwood after Awesome Again makes about as much sense as Belmont Park naming a race after Zenyatta.

i agree with everything you say...but i don't think it's to honor stronach, probably just to remind people that awesome again is still around (50k at adena!). no such thing as bad p.r. and all that.
besides, you have the man o war, on turf. man o war never ran on turf.

[Linny]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

Holy Sh!t!

They re-named the Goodwood Stakes the Awesome Again Stakes?

Awesome Again never even raced at Santa Anita in his entire career.

he was owned by Stronach, 'nuf said.