Okay, pick your Santa!  The one that ends in Claus or the one that ends in Anita.  Okay, you can choose both.  Both should be bearing gifts but one is judgmental and the other is not.  The one that lands on your roof tomorrow night will be checking his list and checking it twice to see if you've been naughty or nice. Oh-oh, do I see a lump of coal in my future?  But the Santa on Boxing Day doesn't care.  You get rewarded with a beautiful wall calendar of Santa Anita simply for your ability to jump into your car and get to the track or to an OTB location more quickly than others who also want a calendar.

Whatever Santa you embrace and even if you embrace the beautiful (??) Festivus pole, I wish you good cheer and a sackful or walletful of loot through the holidays.  I'll keep this special Christmas week column short and sweet knowing you may have to get to the Sev to pick up last minute gifts.  Bottoms up!  Hic!

NO RACING XMAS EVE OR XMAS DAY

But Boxing Day features Santa calendar giveaway

There will be no racing tomorrow, Dec. 24 or Christmas Day, Dec. 25. But the track WILL BE open tomorrow, Christmas Eve,  for VLT play from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. AND YOU CAN PICK UP PROGRAMS FOR DECEMBER 26 RACING.  The Downs will be totally dark on Christmas Day, the only day of the year that happens.  Sorry, Russian.  The parking lot will be open, though, for those who need their daily Downs fix.  

Boxing Day a biggie:  Boxing Day, though, is one of the biggest days of racing, marking the opening of Santa Anita's main meet.  A beautiful wall calendar of Santa Anita scenes will be given free to the first 300 attending the track or an OTB location.  Racing begins at 11:25 a.m. with racing under the Florida palm trees at Calder. See full schedule here.

Boxing night features poker and betting spree:  Since Boxing Day falls on a Friday, there will also be HO-HO hold 'em poker and the one-minute Lightning Round betting spree at night.  Get into the draw for both!  There'll be two more opportunities to play The Lightning Round game Saturday night.

OPENING DAY AT SANTA HAS LOCAL CONNECTION

Death of Winnipeg jockey led to Jockeys' Guild

Because a jockey died under tragic circumstances at a Winnipeg race track in 1927, the opening of Santa Anita's showcase meet each winter carries special significance.  That's because on opening day in 1940, Tommy Luther, a jockey who had been a friend of the deceased jockey riding in Winnipeg, risked his career to rally support for the formation of a jockeys' union to prevent such future tragedies. At issue was the death of Earl "Sandy" Graham, 16, who couldn't be taken to hospital after a spill during a race at Polo Park because not enough money could be raised for a cab ride. 

Suffering a broken back and crushed chest, he lay in the jock's room until the race card was over and someone could drive him to the hospital--but it was too late.  His body was buried in a pauper's grave at Brookside Cemetary. 

But fellow jockey Tommy Luther--a jockey in fact who initially had been scheduled to ride the horse that went down—carried that memory to Santa Anita some years later and,  on opening day of the Santa meet he held a meeting at the golf course across from Santa Anita.  But that got him banned from riding, not only at Santa Anita, but at other U.S. tracks until more and more jockeys rallied to his cause--which ultimately led to the formation of the Jockeys' Guild that May.  Something to think about when Santa Anita opens Friday.

WHAT WAS ON THE RADIO 50 YEARS AGO?

Downs "birth" year featured chipmunks

Fifty years ago, the year Assiniboia Downs was born, the musical world was experiencing a momentous Christmas first that many music-lovers may prefer to forget about: singing chipmunks.  The singing of Alvin, Simon and Theodore in 1958 topped an already crazy eclectic year in music, marked by the flying purple people eater, the syrupy Everly Brothers, a guy singing about his witch doctor friend and swivel-hips Presley being inducted into the army.  If you want to relive  some of that nostalgia or you just want to experience the bizarreness of that year, click here and go chipmunk.  
 

NEW YEAR'S EVE FILLING UP QUICKLY

Get a load of this menu!

Beef tenderloin

There’s still some availability for New Year’s Eve in the Terrace Dining Room—but you’ve got to act quickly.  Phone 885-3330.  Because of the distinctive ambiance—outside, swirling snow; inside, the glow of holiday lighting—your New Year’s Eve celebration will have a memorable aspect unavailable elsewhere.  The evening begins with a 150-course feast (okay, I exaggerate, but take a peak at the menu and you'll know why I said that).  Plus dancing, party favours and, of course, popping the Champagne corks at midnight.  Cost per person is $39.99.  Cost of the ambiance?  Priceless.