Los Alamitos interested in September Thoroughbred dates

Los Alamitos concludes its two-week daytime summer meeting for Thoroughbreds with an eight-race program Sunday, but it is not clear when the track will resume daytime Thoroughbred racing.

Los Alamitos is scheduled to hold a three-week meeting from Dec. 4-20, but may ask the racing board to run a brief season in September, pending actions by Santa Anita. Los Alamitos officials have sent letters to the California Horse Racing Board in the last week expressing an interest in racing.

Last year, Santa Anita was awarded racing dates from Sept. 9 to Oct. 25 by the racing board, but track officials said last month that the start of that meeting could be delayed to Sept. 18 or Sept. 25 to allow a gap following the end of the Del Mar summer meeting on Sept. 7. Del Mar opens its meeting July 10.

The racing board is expected to hear Santa Anita’s application for a fall meeting at its monthly meeting on Aug. 20. The subject has been delayed from the racing board’s July meeting to give Santa Anita more time to finalize scheduling, according to Scott Chaney, the racing board’s executive director.

:: Click to learn about our DRF's Free Past Performance program.

Chaney said Friday that conversations between track officials in coming weeks could lead to a resolution.

“For the most part, it depends on Santa Anita and what they want to do and then presenting that to the board,” Chaney said Friday. “To give both parties a little more time, we put it off until August.”

An August decision creates a rapid turnaround before Los Alamitos would race in September.

“It will be very tight,” Chaney said. “You would hope there would be some discussion before then and the parties would have some idea where we’re headed.”

Chaney said the racing board has a provision to call a 48-hour emergency meeting to discuss applications for racing dates, if needed.

From 2014 through last year, Los Alamitos ran the Los Angeles County Fair dates in September, following the Del Mar summer meeting and prior to the start of the Santa Anita autumn meeting. Last year, the racing board rearranged the calendar and moved the county fair portion of the Los Alamitos dates to December.

Currently, Los Alamitos is scheduled to have five weeks of daytime Thoroughbred racing this year compared to eight from 2014-19. The track continues to run an evening meeting of Quarter Horses and lower-level Thoroughbreds.