Santa Anita Park in California has launched an alternate website, www.santaanitalive.com, in an effort to reach a broader, younger audience by offering a wide array of content, much of which is not horse racing-specific.

“We know that we need to expand our fan base and try harder than ever to reach an audience that may not be familiar with our sport,” said Santa Anita vice president of marketing and sales Chris Quinn. “Our intention is to make SantaAnitaLive much more than a racetrack website. We host so many events here, 365 days a year, that we needed a dedicated vehicle like SantaAnitaLive to be able to promote and entice people and organizations to consider Santa Anita Park for a vast number of events that we can host.”
 
Quinn also noted that with HBO’s “Luck” set to premier in January, SantaAnitaLive will be a valuable tool in helping to publicize the much-anticipated episodic series that will star Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte, Dennis Farina. and others.
 
“We’re confident that ‘Luck’ has the potential to be a mega-hit and we’re hopeful it will instill interest in our sport and in Santa Anita in ways that we’ve never seen before,” Quinn said.  “We hope to be able to work with the HBO people and promote through the use of still photos, trailers, etc, the essence of what all of us hope ‘Luck’ will be.”

Santa Anita’s director of  community services and special projects, Pete Siberell, who has worked closely with HBO on-site, views SantaAnitaLive as a tool to further develop the “Luck” story.

“We anticipate a good many people coming to Santa Anita to check out where various scenes have been shot. With this new website, we hope to bring ‘Luck’ to life at Santa Anita Park,” Siberell said. 
           
In addition to “Luck,” it is anticipated that many more entertainment and sports celebrities will be regular attendees at Santa Anita in the weeks and months ahead.

“SantaAnitaLive is going to be a great way for people to stay in touch and to get a sense of the fun and the buzz that we hope to be able to create and sustain,” Quinn said.               

Prominent among many special events scheduled to take place at Santa Anita in coming months are the annual Santa Anita Derby 5K Walk and Run, the California Philharmonic’s “Festival on the Green” summer concert series, and a continuation of Santa Anita’s highly successful Gourmet Food Truck Festivals.

 “SantaAnitaLive will also offer people tips on local lodging and dining and we’ll thus be in better contact with our friends and neighbors in the local business community,” Quinn said. “We’re hoping that people will look to this website when they’re thinking about a restaurant or if they live out of the area, that they’ll check with us first before making hotel reservations.”

SantaAnitaLive will also offer “Tips and Tricks,” which will serve as an insiders guide to Santa Anita and all that it has to offer. Wagering terminology, which is often intimidating to newcomers, will also be explained fully.