Damazio was killed in the 2nd race at Santa Anita yesterday. He was six, and this was his 13th time under the whip. His is the second death at this hallowed track in five days.
Also, the CHRB reports that Double Velocity perished at Los Alamitos Thursday – “musculoskeletal” is all they’re saying. She was three.
RIP, Damazio!
The 2nd at Santa Anita was 1 mile on the dirt track. Santa Anita put up the race replay, with about 5-8 seconds edited out of it as the horses came into the stretch.
Damazio had run once each in January 2025, March 2025 and May 2025 with the last race being 5/16/25. Seven months off usually means some sort of injury.
We have always felt as riders that the ” Down hill ” course was not a good design from a horses legs point of view with the horses having to cross the dirt course when racing in a turf race. Such changes in surface composition even for a short ways are harder on a horses legs & feet. With the ever increasing costs of operating any track, Santa Anita`s land will become to valuable for other uses in our lifetimes we`re sure of. Just like what has happened to all the 1 mile tracks here in the NW. except Emerald Downs. Even Emerald Downs when it was built in the mid 1990`s hedged their bets by the way the backside barns were constructed. Old timers in the early 2000’s told us Emerald`s barns were constructed so as to be used as a storage facility if racing was to become not economically viable later on down the road.