Los Alamitos's goal for September meet: larger fields
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLECYPRESS, Calif. – Los Alamitos’s high mark for field size during its meetings the last two years has come at the Los Angeles County Fair meeting each September.
The 2014 meeting averaged 7.73 runners per race, the highest average of any meeting at Los Alamitos since the track began daytime Thoroughbred races following the 2013 closure of Hollywood Park. Last year, the September meeting drew 7.65 runners per race, the second-highest average.
Beating those figures is a goal for the three-week meeting that begins Thursday and runs through Sept. 25. Large fields are a key component for the meeting to be successful, according to track general manager Brad McKinzie.
“If we can put a good product out there, it will be fine,” he said last weekend. “We can talk about all the bells and whistles all we want to, but we have to have the product.”
For bettors participating at simulcast locations or through account-wagering services, larger fields can draw attention to Los Alamitos, which is trying to gain recognition across the nation while competing for customers with better-known tracks.
The September meeting is run under the license of the Los Angeles County Fair, which transferred its racing dates from Fairplex Park in Pomona to Los Alamitos in 2014.
This will be the second Thoroughbred meeting of the year at Los Alamitos. The track ran a three-week meeting in April and early May, replacing July dates in 2014 and 2015. A two-week meeting is scheduled for December. In 2017, meetings will be in July, September, and December.
This month’s meeting is highlighted by the $200,000 Los Alamitos Derby, which was run in July in 2014 and 2015. The Grade 2 Los Alamitos Derby is run at 1 1/8 miles and is the lone graded stakes among five stakes this month.
The Los Alamitos Derby is the richest race on dirt for 3-year-olds in Southern California between the $1 million Santa Anita Derby in April and the $300,000 Malibu Stakes at seven furlongs at Santa Anita on Dec. 26. There were $100,000 dirt races run at Los Alamitos in April, Santa Anita in July, and Del Mar in August. The remainder of the six-figure stakes for 3-year-olds in open company have been run on turf in recent months in California.
The Los Alamitos Derby does not have as high a purse as the $400,000 Super Derby at Louisiana Downs on Saturday, the $1 million Pennsylvania Derby at Parx Racing on Sept. 24, or the $400,000 Oklahoma Derby at Remington Park on Sept. 25, but it still fills a void in the California late-summer schedule.
“I think it will be a good opportunity,” McKinzie said. “California needs a big 3-year-old race.”
Entries for Thursday’s opening day were scheduled to be drawn late Monday.
The track will have a new voice. Bobby Neuman will call the races at Los Alamitos for the first time. Neuman, a former track announcer at Calder, replaces Frank Mirahmadi, who is calling at Monmouth Park in New Jersey.