Santa Anita Renames Gold Cup to Hollywood Gold Cup

Santa Anita Park will restore the Hollywood Gold Cup (G1) name for the prestigious race for older horses beginning with this year's running June 6. The race had been called the Gold Cup at Santa Anita since moving to the Arcadia track in 2014. 

"The Hollywood Gold Cup is one of the most storied races in all of American racing and we are right to remember it," said Aidan Butler, executive director of California racing operations for The Stronach Group. "Beginning when Seabiscuit won the inaugural in 1938, it has attracted some of the finest older horses in the world. Even though Hollywood Park doesn't exist anymore, this race does, and it deserves to be linked to its grand past."

Game on Dude was the last winner of the Hollywood Gold Cup when it was run under that name at Hollywood Park in 2013. He also won it the year before in 2012.

Hollywood Park last conducted racing in December 2013 after which the Inglewood property came under development. This summer, part of the grounds will include a completed SoFi Stadium, the eventual home of the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers football teams.

This year's Hollywood Gold Cup is part of a blockbuster day of racing Saturday at Santa Anita, headlined by the $400,000 Runhappy Santa Anita Derby (G1). The Gold Cup is contested at the classic American distance of 1 1/4-miles on dirt for a purse of $300,000. 

Repole Stable and St. Elias Stable’s Vino Rosso  shipped from New York to win last summer’s Gold Cup, a precursor to his fall win in the Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) that cemented his Eclipse Award as the year’s champion older dirt male.