The property's most widely known owner would be multimillionaire Lucky Baldwin, a successful businessman in San Francisco who greatly enhanced his wealth through an investment in the famous Comstock Lode.

[6] Architect Gordon Kaufmann designed its various buildings in a combination of Colonial Revival and a type of Art Deco known as Streamline Moderne, painted primarily in Santa Anita's signature colors of Persian Green and Chiffon Yellow.

In its heyday, the track's races attracted such stars as Betty Grable, Lana Turner, Edgar Bergen, Jane Russell, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, and Esther Williams, among others.

[9] For several months in 1942, over 18,000 people lived in horse stables and military-style barracks constructed on the site, including actor George Takei, then a young boy.

[11] Several stars, including Bing Crosby, Spencer Tracy, Errol Flynn, Alex Trebek, and MGM mogul, Louis B. Mayer, have owned horses that raced at the park.

A group of horsemen including Clement Hirsch intervened and established the not-for-profit Oak Tree Racing Association.

The Oak Tree meet relocated to Hollywood Park for 2010[12] but the California Horse Racing Board awarded the fall dates to Santa Anita in its own right in 2011.

For example, the Norfolk, Goodwood, Yellow Ribbon, Lady's Secret, and Oak Leaf, were renamed at the FrontRunner, Awesome Again, Rodeo Drive, Zenyatta and Chandelier respectively.

Following the elimination of the special tax treatment accorded Pair Share REITs, Meditrust sold the track to Magna Entertainment Corp.

[17] At Santa Anita Park's European-style paddock there are statues of jockeys George Woolf, Johnny Longden, Bill Shoemaker and Laffit Pincay Jr. plus a memorial bust of announcer Joe Hernandez and one of trainer Charlie Whittingham with his dog, Toby.

[18] Since 1950, Santa Anita Park has annually presented the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award to a rider who demonstrates high standards of personal and professional conduct, on and off the racetrack.

South African native Trevor Denman served as Santa Anita's full-time announcer from the 1983 Oak Tree meet until his retirement from the position in 2015.

[35][36] In February 1942, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized military commanders to exclude "any or all persons" from certain areas in the name of national defense, the Western Defense Command began ordering Japanese Americans living on the West Coast to present themselves for "evacuation" from the newly created military zones.

Seventeen temporary "assembly centers" were designated to house the evicted population until construction on the more permanent and isolated internment camps was finished.

[37] Santa Anita was turned over to the Wartime Civilian Control Administration, the government body responsible for oversight of the temporary detention facilities, in March 1942, and army engineers soon after built 500 barracks on the parking lot and converted the horse stables and the area underneath the grandstand into residential "apartments".

Japanese-Americans began arriving in April, most coming from the surrounding Los Angeles County, and the center's population soon topped 18,000, peaking at 18,719 by August of that year.

[37] The Assembly Center remained open for seven months, and in the meantime, Japanese-Americans took up jobs in camp at the camouflage net factory, the hospital or various administrative departments, and set up schools to ensure their children's education would not be interrupted.

The track lost 11 racing dates in 2008 due to a drainage problem with the new material, but intensive maintenance and the addition of a liquid binder greatly improved the artificial surface.

The Santa Anita Racetrack was determined eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places in 2006,[44] but continued to be threatened by developer's plans.

A themed entertainment complex proposal was aborted, but there were new plans are in the works for the parking and support areas adjacent to the historic race track and grandstands.

The Arcadia City Council approved a plan In April 2007 to develop an 830,000 square foot commercial, retail, and office complex in the south parking area, where the barracks that housed interned Japanese Americans during World War II are located.

The proposal planned to tear down the South Ticket Gate and the 1938 Saddling Barn, and to install a simulcast facility in the center of the historic grandstand.

[10] In April 2008, a plan was approved to use large parts of the existing track parking lot to construct a mall, the "Shops at Santa Anita".