Los Alamitos mulls cutting two days from summer meet
Los Alamitos officials are considering reducing the number of racing days for the track’s upcoming summer meeting from 12 to 10 to ensure all programs draw sufficient entries, track vice-president Jack Liebau said on Tuesday.
Liebau said there is a possibility Los Alamitos could delay the opening of the meeting from June 27 to June 29. Currently, Los Alamitos is scheduled to run four days a week, from Thursdays through Sundays, through July 14.
Liebau said the track is focused on carding four programs from July 4-7 on a week in which many people will have a four-day vacations in conjunction with the Fourth of July holiday.
“It’s very important that we be able to fill on those four days,” Liebau said. “The Fourth of July is on a Thursday. The Friday becomes a quasi-holiday, in my mind.
“I’m considering when we should open, whether we can fill four days a week with Santa Anita going three days a week and encountering some problems. That’s a topic on my table.
“We’re supposed to open on Thursday the 27th. I’m considering whether we open on Saturday.”
Santa Anita has run three-day racing weeks since April 12 and is scheduled to do so through the conclusion of the current spring-summer meeting on June 23. Santa Anita has seen a drop in average runners per race this spring since the track enacted tougher restrictions on which horses are allowed to race or train following a series of equine fatalities in recent months.
Through Monday, Santa Anita has averaged 7.15 runners per race since April 12. During a comparable period in 2018, the track averaged 7.55 runners per race and ran 51 more races.
Liebau stressed that no decision has been made on the number of programs for the Los Alamitos summer meeting and that he has reached out to California Horse Racing Board officials about the potential change.
Los Alamitos has customarily run four-day racing weeks since the track was expanded to accommodate daytime Thoroughbred racing in 2014 following the closure of Hollywood Park in 2013.
Los Alamitos does not have a turf course, which has limited the number of horses available to race. In addition, the proximity of the track’s summer meeting to the popular Del Mar summer meeting, which offers higher prize money, has led some owners and trainers to bypass running horses at Los Alamitos entirely.
Del Mar officials told the racing board last week that they are committed to run five days a week for the summer meeting from July 17 to Sept. 2, but may offer fewer races per day, if necessary, to reach that goal.