Autumn comes in almost picture perfectly at Santa Anita

They’re back in the saddle again at Santa Anita. The thoroughfares around Arcadia have traffic heading for the thoroughbreds.

For the next five weeks, the track where the turf meets the foothills will be all dressed up and ready to go. It was looking pretty fashionable Saturday, when the newly named Santa Anita Autumn Meeting held its second day of autumn racing against a backdrop of blue skies and picturesque mountains.

It was the kind of day that might prompt racing officials to capture it in a bottle for later use. If this sport is dying, as we hear so often in the media from those who validate that theory by paying no attention to it, then it still keeps an occasional tight grip on the oxygen bottle.

Saturday was a deep breath of fresh air. Also, in one moment, a swallow of swill.

Until two years ago, this Santa Anita Autumn Meeting had been known, since 1969, as Oak Tree at Santa Anita. Then owner Frank Stronach showed his longtime tenant the door so he could keep the desirable fall dates for himself and not a renter. Saturday attracted 16,013 and featured four prestigious Grade I races.

Critics will be quick to point out that, 20 years ago, racing of that quality at Santa Anita would have drawn close to 40,000. Whether that’s a commentary on changes in the sport or changes in people is hard to say. Twenty years ago, people talked to other people. Now they send texts.

Any big race day is always a storybook.

The star of the show was to be the super filly Blind Luck, who inexplicably finished last in the Lady’s Secret Stakes. The shoes of her predecessor were big ones to fill. Zenyatta had won the race the last three years, and her owners, Jerry and Ann Moss, made it four in a row when their Zazu came home first.

Another big attraction was the Norfolk Stakes. It is one of a series of early tests for 2-year-olds who might get to the starting gate at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May. Two of the best-known and most successful trainers in the sport, Doug O’Neill and Bob Baffert, had horses running.

O’Neill, still waiting for Kentucky Derby success, said he felt good, had won the recent training title at Fairplex — “I wished the fair had gone on for a month,” he said — and praised his horse, Busmati.

Baffert, who wins Triple Crown races like we eat potato chips, was equally excited about his prospect, Drill. He said Drill is “training terrific,” and seemed eager to get jockey Martin Garcia in the saddle. His only instruction was to not let the men loading Drill into the gate tug a certain way on the reins around the horse’s head. With a reporter standing nearby, Baffert finished the instructions in Spanish.

Drill didn’t load easily. Then, Garcia tried to find a hole on the rail and it didn’t open up in time. Joel Rosario rode Creative Cause to the win, Drill was second and Busmati managed only fourth. Baffert had some less-than-kind things to say about Garcia’s ride and the usually gregarious Garcia hustled away, telling reporters he had nothing to say.

All the while, telecasts from Belmont outside New York City showed equally compelling races. Uncle Mo, last spring’s sure thing to win the Kentucky Derby until he took ill, won in a fast time. Then, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup Invitational, a horse named Flat Out did exactly that down the stretch to win. He was ridden by Alex Solis, a potential Hall of Famer, who left the Southern California jockey colony a few years ago when his business started to dry up. A continent away, lots of people rooted Solis home.

Then there was the ugliness that comes all too often in racing.

In Box 118, veteran trainer Craig Lewis watched in horror as his Mudville Nine, taking second place out of the gate, was suddenly pulled up by Joe Talamo. Talamo quickly jumped off the limping horse and the usual dreaded ambulance-arrival-and-departure scene took place. Mudville Nine, with fractures in both front legs, was probably euthanized before the picture-taking of victorious Hot Ride had finished in the winners’ circle.

Lewis, 64, has trained for 30 years, has ranked in the top 10 nationally in money won and has won prestigious races such as the Santa Anita Handicap, the Del Mar Futurity and the Hollywood Gold Cup. His best horse was 1995 Big Cap winner Larry The Legend.

“That was a great moment,” Lewis said. “It was definitely the opposite of this moment.”

Larry The Legend was Mudville Nine’s father. Mudville Nine was a 2-year-old “just starting to get it, was real sound, never had a sick day,” Lewis said.

Lewis not only owned the horse but also bred the horse, and he said that, despite the emotional and financial loss, the aftermath is easier when the horse is your own.

“You feel bad enough,” he said. “Then you have to tell the bad news to somebody else.”

Lewis, a Cal Berkeley grad, quoted Hall of Fame trainer LeRoy Jolley.

“He always said, this isn’t for little boys in short pants,” Lewis said. “In this business, you are hopelessly helpless.”

Life had stopped for Mudville Nine. It went on a bit sadly for Lewis, and with only a slight notice from the 16,013, who had plenty of other stimulants.

In the eighth race, winner Mega Heat brought nice value by paying $28.60, $14.40 and $9.20. Mega Heat was ridden by Talamo, who so expertly and gently had guided the fatally injured Mudville Nine to a stop.

The lines at the windows stayed long, the sun kept shining, the beer flowing. The Great Race Place had stayed true to its adjective.

Mostly.

bill.dwyre@latimes.com