July 4 card will include Los Alamitos Derby, Grade 2 Great Lady M. Stakes

For the first time in four years, a Los Alamitos Thoroughbred meeting may have a prep for a Triple Crown race.

Los Alamitos will have a two-week afternoon Thoroughbred meeting from June 26 to July 5 that will include three stakes. Two of those races will be run on July 4 – the Grade 3 Los Alamitos Derby at 1 1/8 miles and the Grade 2 Great Lady M. Stakes for fillies and mares at 6 1/2 furlongs.

The $100,000 Los Alamitos Derby could draw 3-year-olds attempting to gain berths in the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on Sept. 5. Last month, Churchill Downs announced the Kentucky Derby would be postponed from May 2 to Sept. 5 because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Churchill Downs has not announced details of the summertime stakes that will offer qualifying points for the Kentucky Derby, or whether the Los Alamitos Derby will be part of the qualifying series.

:: KENTUCKY DERBY 2020: Derby Watch, point standings, prep schedule, news, and more

In recent years, the Los Alamitos Derby has been a prep for major stakes for 3-year-olds in late summer. In 2017, West Coast won the Los Alamitos Derby and later the Grade 1 Travers Stakes at Saratoga. West Coast was later voted champion 3-year-old male.

In 2016, when Los Alamitos ran a brief Thoroughbred meeting in April, Uncle Lino won the California Chrome Stakes at Los Alamitos and was later seventh in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico in his final start.

The Los Alamitos summer meeting received license approval from the California Horse Racing Board on Wednesday. The $200,000 Great Lady M. Stakes is the richest race of the meeting, which will race Fridays through Sundays.

The first stakes is the $100,000 Soi Phet Stakes for California-breds at a mile on June 27, a race formerly known as the Bertrando Stakes. The Soi Phet Stakes honors the multiple stakes winner who was retired at the age of 11 last summer.

Soi Phet, who won 15 of 64 starts and earned $1,023,917, was a five-time stakes winner at Los Alamitos. He earned $985,837 after he was claimed for $16,000 at Hollywood Park in the summer of 2013. Soi Phet, now residing at a retirement farm in Kentucky, won the Bertrando in 2014 and 2018.

Los Alamitos officials said during the racing board’s teleconference meeting earlier this week that there is a strong likelihood the six-day meeting will be held without spectators or horse owners present because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The track is currently running an evening meeting for Quarter Horses and lower-level Thoroughbreds without spectators or horse owners present and with a minimal number of staff needed to conduct racing.