Santa Anita: Hernandez, D’Amato, Reddam win titles

Santa Anita’s 29-day spring meet, which began on April 19, drew to a close Sunday, with Juan Hernandez atop the jockey’s standings, Phil D’Amato winning the trainer’s title and Reddam Racing leading all owners.

For Hernandez, a 32-year-old native of Veracruz, Mexico, this was his sixth riding title at Santa Anita. He finished with 36 wins from 176 mounts, a 20 percent win rate, to prevail by a single victory over Antonio Fresu, a 32-year-old native of Italy who has been riding at Santa Anita for just over 14 months. Fresu had a chance to tie Hernandez for the title in Sunday’s 12th and final race but came up agonizingly short when finishing second by just a head aboard Anmer Hall for trainer Steve Knapp.

Hernandez also led all jockeys in both purse earnings, with $2,008,398, and stakes wins, with five. Hernandez previously was the leading rider at the 2023-24 winter meet, 2023 autumn meet, 2023 spring meet, 2022-23 winter meet and 2021-22 winter-spring meet.

“When I moved here the plan was to do good and ride hard all the time,” Hernandez said. “It’s a lot of fun riding a horse and competing with these guys. We have a really nice colony of jockeys. It is really fun and (Fresu) put me under a lot of pressure this time. My agent Craig O’Bryan, he put me on good horses.  I want to thank the owners, trainers and my family for all the support this meet. Hopefully we can keep rolling.”  

D’Amato was leading trainer with 22 wins from 120 starters, an 18 percent strike rate. He finished five wins ahead of Doug O’Neill for the title. D’Amato also led all trainers with $1,397,432 in purse earnings and with six stakes victories.

“It’s a testament to having really good horses, great owners and great help,” said D’Amato, a 48-year-old native of nearby San Pedro, Calif. “You put those all together and you’ll have success.”

Paul and Zillah Reddam’s Reddam Racing narrowly won the owner’s title with seven wins at the spring meet, one more than Red Baron’s Barn or Rancho Temescal.

Racing will return to Santa Anita with the start of the autumn meet on Sept. 27. The meet will feature the first-ever California Crown day, highlighted by the inaugural running of the $1 million California Crown (G1) for 3-year-olds and up at 1 1/8 miles on dirt.