Firefighters Honored During Breeder's Cup at Heroes and Horses Event

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Santa Anita Park Honors Firefighters With "Heroes and Horses"

The Breeder's Cup is the one of racing's most prestigious events, with fourteen races and total purses of more than $25 million.  At the 2009 Breeder's Cup, which was held at Santa Anita Park in Southern California, first responders from the fire and police communities, as well as military personnel, were honored for their service to the public in a race day event appropriately titled "Heroes and Horses". 

Invitations were sent out in Santa Barbara, Ventura, Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego Counties for "Heroes and Horses", and over 2,000 people responded.  Admission for the heroes and their families was free, and special seating and a buffet lunch were set up in the infield for the special guests.

Allen Gutterman, the Vice President of Marketing for Santa Anita Park, explains why the race track chose to honor the men and women in uniform at one of the largest events in the horse racing world, saying, "These wonderful people put their lives in danger to protect us and so we thought this would be a great day for us to say thank you on the biggest day of the year and invite them to kind of take over the infield."  The race track is located near the hills where thousands of firefighters battled the 2009 Station Fire, and so it was especially fitting that the firefighters were honored at the event.

The Breeder's Cup

2009 marked the 26th year of the Breeder's Cup, which is an end of the year championship on par with the Triple Crown races.  Gutterman explains, "Horses come from Europe, from Asia, from all over the United States, New York, Kentucky, and those here in California, and it's really the "Best of the Best", the "Cream of the Crop", the very finest horses in the world."  The race is not always run at Santa Anita, but rather rotates among three to four of the nation's premier race tracks.  According to Gutterman, next year's Breeder's Cup will be run at Churchill Downs in Kentucky, where the Kentucky Derby is run.

"Ready! Set! Go!"

"Heroes and Horses" also provided fire departments with the opportunity to reach out to the community with static displays of fire apparatus and information on Ready! Set! Go!, a public safety program that was implemented in 2009 to help the public to be prepared in the case of a natural disaster.  Deputy Chief Tom Drayer of the California Emergency Management Agency (CAL EMA) Fire and Rescue Branch, explains, "It's an all-hazards program that addresses not only wildland fire but also mudflows, earthquakes, and those types of events as well."

On-duty personnel from CAL FIRE, CAL EMA Fire and Rescue Branch, Los Angeles County Fire Department and the City of Los Angeles Fire Department were on hand to meet the public, and distribute and explain the "Ready! Set! Go!" material.  For more information, and a downloadable PDF version of the "Ready! Set! Go!" booklet click here.