Insufficient entries force Los Alamitos to drop Thursday card

CYPRESS, Calif. – Los Alamitos will not race on Thursday after the track failed to draw sufficient horses when entries were compiled on Saturday.

Track officials said nine-race programs are tentatively scheduled for Friday through Sunday, the final three days of the summer meeting that began on June 29.

Because of the cancellation, Los Alamitos will run a maximum of nine of the 12 scheduled days for the summer meeting. Programs on June 27-28, a Thursday and Friday, were scrapped in early June due to concern over a shortage of available horses, officials said at the time.

Short fields have plagued this meeting, and have been an issue at this track in recent years. Through Friday, after four days of racing, fields have averaged 6.47 runners per race, compared with 6.9 runners per race for the entire 2018 summer meeting.

The track does not have a turf course, which reduces the number of available runners on a circuit in which turf races are popular at Del Mar and Santa Anita.

Saturday, racing secretary Bob Moreno said he had five races filled by midday though some of the races had only five entrants. At the time, entries had not been reviewed by a panel of stewards and veterinarians who are scrutinizing racing, medical and training records of horses entered the race.

The panel was launched at Santa Anita last month as a result of criticism by California Gov. Gavin Newsom over a series of equine fatalities in training and racing at that track since late December.

A similar panel will be in place at the Del Mar summer meeting that begins on July 17.

Moreno said finding sufficient runners for Thursday’s program was difficult.

“It was for the best,” Moreno said. “It would have been a struggle to get to seven races. It would have been three or four races with five-horse fields.”

There are approximately 2,350 Thoroughbreds in Southern California, although some are unraced 2-year-olds being prepared for the start of their careers. Moreno said there are 1,700 horses based at Santa Anita and approximately 300 based at Los Alamitos that participate in the daytime Thoroughbred meeting. The remainder of the horses based at Los Alamitos race at the track’s nighttime meeting for Quarter Horses and lower-level Thoroughbreds.

There are approximately 300 to 350 horses based at San Luis Rey Downs training center in San Diego county.

Moreno said he hopes to card nine races on the final three days. Those racing days coincide with the start of the transfer of hundreds of horses to Del Mar, which could affect entries at Los Alamitos.

Los Alamitos is in the midst of a four-day racing week, the first in Southern California since early April. Santa Anita canceled racing on nine Thursdays from mid-April to late June after expressing concern over the number of race-ready horses.

Del Mar is planning on racing five days per week for its summer meeting through Sept. 2, although the track plans to run fewer races per day for most of the season.