Racing board approves Los Alamitos September meeting

Los Alamitos received approval for its three-week Los Angeles County Fair meeting in September at Thursday’s California Horse Racing Board meeting, but the number of days of racing during the brief season has not been finalized, according to track officials.

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Los Alamitos earlier has proposed a 12-day meeting from Sept. 5-22 with racing on a Thursday-through-Sunday basis. But track vice president Jack Liebau told the racing board that opening day is likely to be Friday, Sept. 6, and that Los Alamitos is considering racing three-day weeks. The meet would run for nine days under those circumstances.

“I would assume we won’t open on Thursday,” he said.

During the three-week Los Alamitos summer meeting, which ended July 14, Los Alamitos originally scheduled 12 days of racing, but ran nine. In late May, the track canceled racing on June 27-28 out of concern over the number of race-ready horses. Racing was canceled on July 11 because of insufficient entries.

“At our meeting, I hoped to do 10 days and I was proved to be wrong,” Liebau said. “We’ll hope for the best and see what happens.”

Los Alamitos has scheduled five stakes for the Los Angeles County Fair meeting, including two $75,000 races for 2-year-olds at 6 1/2 furlongs – the Phone Chatter Stakes for fillies on Sept. 14 and the Capote Stakes for colts and geldings on Sept. 21. The races replace two sales progeny stakes sponsored in past years by Barretts Sales, which ceased operation last year.