Los Alamitos reports solid business for 2019 summer meeting

CYPRESS, Calif. – Handle for the nine-day Los Alamitos summer meeting compared favorably to a similar nine-day stretch from last year’s longer meeting, track vice-president Jack Liebau said Sunday.

Los Alamitos held nine days of racing from June 29 through Sunday, and Liebau said handle on those days improved by approximately 2 percent compared to similar days at the 2018 summer meeting. There were 11 complete days of racing at the 2018 meeting and one day with two races when the remainder of the program was canceled because of excessive heat.

The track did not release attendance and handle figures for this year’s meeting.

Los Alamitos was scheduled to run 12 days this summer, but canceled the June 27-28 programs in late spring out of concern over the number of race ready horses in Southern California. The July 11 program was canceled on July 6 because of insufficient entries.

Los Alamitos ran a four-day racing week on July 4-7, but had three days of racing last week.

“We hoped to do more than three days of racing and it didn’t work out,” Liebau said.

There were no fatalities in 78 races over the nine days. Average field size was 6.5 runners for 78 races compared to 6.9 runners in 96 races at the 2018 summer meeting. Los Alamitos does not have a turf course. Turf races typically draw larger fields than dirt races.

Average field size also declined at the marathon Santa Anita meeting earlier this year, with 7.36 runners per race compared to 7.85 in the first half of 2018.

Los Alamitos will host the Los Angeles County Fair meeting for three weeks in September. The meeting is scheduled to start on Sept. 5, but Liebau said on Sunday the opening could be pushed to Sept. 6.

On the track this summer, apprentice jockey Jorge Velez, 21, led all riders with nine wins, two more than second place Geovanni Franco. This was the first riding title for Velez, a native of Puerto Rico.

Peter Miller led trainers with five wins, one more than Bob Baffert. Miller won twice on Sunday to secure the title, his fourth at Los Alamitos.