Over an entire weekend, Oct 5th and 6th, The Oak Tree Racing Association returns in sort of a sponsorship role supporting a weekend of celebration of Santa Anita's sisterhood with Japan. It appears that there will be some kind of "drawing for betting vouchers up to $5000 called "The Cherry Tree" with $30,000 in prizes. I thought at first that it was a new stakes race, but it's not. The traditional Tokyo City Cup will be run on Sunday the 6th.
Also, it seems that on both weekend days, the OTRA is giving away a new edition of the old and beloved Oak Tree Stein!
I wonder what happened. There was such bad blood between Frank and the OTRA back when he decided to evict them, which in turn caused all the venerable OTRA race names to be changed. That, in my opinion, was one of the worst public relations disasters that Frank was ever involved with. Looks like his exit from the operation has facilitated a warming of relations with Belinda.
I hope so. They were always such a positive asset, and their departure from the Arcadia Racing scene was a travesty!
