DEL MAR \u2013 Over the years, Elias Anaya admits he has lost track of many members of his \u201cfamily.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are so many in my family,\u201d the 60-year-old Anaya said Thursday at the Del Mar Racetrack. \u201cMaybe thousands. When you do this, you fall in love with them all.\u201d<\/p>\n
For 35 years, Anaya has served the sport of racing as a groom. For 22 years, he worked for Bill Shoemaker. For the past 12, he has been part of trainer Doug O\u2019Neill\u2019s team.<\/p>\n
And his family \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cMy horses,\u201d he says. \u201cEvery horse I\u2019m with becomes family. I love horses. I think it\u2019s the same way for all of us. It\u2019s more than a job. The horses become part of you. They know me. I know them. It\u2019s a family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anaya now oversees the care of five horses in O\u2019Neill\u2019s stable. He is the first face they see each morning and usually the last they see at night. He is like the mother hen.<\/p>\n
He arrives at the barn each morning at 5. He checks out after 4 p.m. \u201cI get breaks in the middle of the day,\u201d he says. \u201cI have a siesta. But I\u2019m always there for my horses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anaya\u2019s first order of business each morning is to check on the welfare of his horses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look into their eyes,\u201d he said. \u201cI study them. I want to know if they drank enough water, ate their dinner. If I don\u2019t like something I see, I tell the foreman or the assistant trainer. The groom is the foundation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anaya goes horse to horse. He cleans their stalls. Prepares them for the exercise rider. After their daily exercise, his horses return to Anaya, who bathes and grooms them, prepares their breakfast and then \u201clets them loose for an hour to be themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. it\u2019s pretty nonstop,\u201d said Anaya. \u201cEven when it is slower in the afternoon, you keep an eye on them all the time. When they rest, you rest. Then you feed them dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Race days, however, are different.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou spend more time with a horse on a race day,\u201d he said. \u201cThey know it\u2019s not another day. Every horse has its own personality. That\u2019s a great part of it. As a groom, you spend more time with each horse learning about the personality. You love them all. But you approach each horse very differently.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anaya admits there is a favorite member of his family \u2014 2016 Kentucky Derby champion Nyquist.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a winner and a champion,\u201d said Anaya. \u201cBut he was also friendly and fun. He\u2019d be very excited to see me in the morning. And he was always looking around to see what was happening. He had happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although the days are long, Anaya sees no change in his lifestyle.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrooms stay around horses,\u201d he said. \u201cEven when they are no longer grooms, they love horses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Friday feature<\/p>\n
Mrs. Astor, a 5-year-old mare who won the Grade III Red Carpet Stakes at Del Mar last fall, is the 5-2 morning-line favorite to win the$100,000 CTT and TOC Stakes \u2014 a 1 3\/8-mile marathon for older fillies and mares.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Astor (Umberto Rispoli) has won five of her last seven starts. Trainer Phil D\u2019Amato will have three of the 11 horses in the field \u2014 Starry Heavens, Kentucky Gal and Sun of Hill.<\/p>\n
The first post for Friday\u2019s card has been advanced an hour to 3 p.m.<\/p>\n
Notable<\/p>\n
Baeza, the third-place finisher behind Sovereignty and Journalism in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes, will not be racing in the Pacific Classic even though he is stabled at Del Mar. Trainer John Shirreffs is pointing him toward the Grade I Pennsylvania Derby.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Rispoli scored just his sixth win of the meeting aboard Roselee May ($16.60) in Thursday\u2019s feature \u2014 1 3\/8-mile allowance on the turf for older Cal-bred fillies and mares. The win was the second of the day for trainer Michael McCarthy.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Jockey Armando Ayuso has been suspended for three days (Aug. 28-30) for crossing without sufficient clearance aboard Devil Among Us in Sunday\u2019s eighth race.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: August 14, 2025 at 5:55 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DEL MAR \u2013 Over the years, Elias Anaya admits he has lost track of many members of his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[288,2843,1071,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-345626","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-horse-racing","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-racing","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115030897688307911","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}