Los Alamitos will run Futurity and Starlet after all

CYPRESS, Calif. – Los Alamitos plans to run Southern California’s two traditional Grade 1 races for 2-year-olds in December – the Starlet and the Los Alamitos Futurity – allaying concerns expressed late last year that the races could not be funded this year.

General manager Brad McKinzie said on Thursday he has been instructed by track owner Ed Allred to schedule the two stakes, which are run at 1 1/16 miles.

“Dr. Allred is very committed to running the two races,” McKinzie said. “They’re important races, and we want to run them.”

Los Alamitos is scheduled to run a two-week meeting over eight days from Dec. 8-18. Last November, McKinzie told the California Horse Racing Board that Los Alamitos would have difficulty funding the two races because opportunities to generate purse money are limited at such a short meeting. At the time, McKinzie said the Starlet would be run at Los Alamitos in 2016, but he offered the Los Alamitos Futurity to another track so the race could be continued.

“No other track showed any interest,” McKinzie said.

Purses for the Starlet and Los Alamitos Futurity this year have not been announced. McKinzie said the races would have an early nomination deadline of June 1. In 2015, the Los Alamitos Futurity was worth $350,500, while the Starlet was worth $301,000.

Los Alamitos began running the Starlet and the Los Alamitos Futurity (formerly the Hollywood Futurity) in 2014 following the closure of Hollywood Park the preceding year.

Through Thursday, the ninth day of a 12-day spring meeting, Los Alamitos was averaging 6.7 runners per race, fewer than during the track’s three meetings in 2015. Last year, the July meeting averaged 7.47 runners per race compared with 7.65 in September and 7.14 in December.

This is the first year that Los Alamitos has run an April meeting. Last year, Santa Anita ran a marathon six-month meeting from late December to late June before Los Alamitos ran a two-week meeting in July. This year, Santa Anita is having two meetings, a winter-spring meeting that ended April 10 and a spring-summer meeting that runs from Thursday to July 10.

One significant difference between the April and July Los Alamitos meetings is that two maiden races for 2-year-olds were run at this meeting compared with 12 last July.

While entries were sparse for the first two weeks of the three-week meeting, Sunday’s program has 81 horses entered in nine races, with three more horses on also-eligible lists.

◗ Jockey Edwin Maldonado has been suspended three days for not riding Big Break to the finish in the fifth race at Los Alamitos on April 24.

Maldonado appeared to misjudge the wire and did not urge Big Break in the last 80 yards of the one-mile race. Big Break finished fourth in the optional claimer, losing third by a nose and finishing 6 1/2 lengths behind race winner Divina Comedia. The suspension covers racing days at Santa Anita on May 8, 12 and 13.