1936 Santa Anita Racing Special Edition Program, Opening Day, SEABISCUIT entered

Description

Vintage horse racing program from December 25, 1936 at Santa Anita Park. This was opening day of the meet and featured the Christmas Stakes that included the legendary Seabiscuit running for owner Charles S. Howard, trainer Tom Smith and jockey Red Pollard. The Biscuit was ultimately scratched from this race due to rain and a heavy track, and Goldeneye ended up with the win.
This program is in remarkable condition with no writing at all. This was printed on very heavy paper stock compared to most Santa Anita programs of the era and includes a centerfold with a cool menu from the famous Derby restaurant. Just about every other program I've ever seen from this era at Santa Anita is printed on that brownish recycled-looking paper, however, this appears to be some kind of special edition program (perhaps distributed in the clubhouse or to VIPs, I'm not really sure). This is noticeably whiter than other programs of the time, especially the covers. The pages are also much thicker, and the covers have some sort of textured paper. Again, I'm not sure exactly how rare this version is or how it came to be, but it's definitely different than most (we have another program from this same day that is the regular brownish paper, so there were two versions of the program on this day). The center pages with the wine list in this program are not in the regular program we have from this day.
There is a touch of staple rust as you can see, but otherwise it's hard to find much fault with this program except for a touch of wear on the corners and some minor surface creases if you look hard enough. We have seen hundreds of programs from the 1930s and this is one of the best examples in terms of condition. Please review the photos and use the magnify feature to review the condition for yourself. We guarantee satisfaction with the racing items we sell, so if you are not happy with it then it can be returned for a full refund, assuming it is returned in the same condition of course.
Shipping is .95, which includes a rigid mailer reinforced with cardboard for protection and insurance.
Please check out other auctions for many other historical horse racing items to be listed in the coming weeks.