Stakes for juveniles highlight short Los Alamitos meeting

Los Alamitos has a simple schedule for its two-week December Thoroughbred meeting, which begins Friday. There is an opening week and a closing week.

The six-day season concludes Dec. 18 and is followed by the popular opening day of the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting on Dec. 26.

The Los Alamitos meeting is highlighted by two major stakes for 2-year-olds at 1 1/16 miles – Saturday’s Grade 1 Starlet Stakes, a $300,000 race for fillies, and the Grade 2 Los Alamitos Futurity on Dec. 17, which is worth $200,000.

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The Starlet Stakes is expected to include Faiza, who won her debut in a maiden special weight race at six furlongs on Nov. 12 at Del Mar by 3 1/2 lengths as the 4-5 favorite. She is trained by Bob Baffert, who has won the last five runnings of the Starlet. Faiza must be supplemented to the Starlet for $10,000.

The Sunday programs are led by $100,000 races at a mile for 2-year-old statebreds – the Soviet Problem Stakes for fillies this Sunday, and the King Glorious Stakes on Dec. 18.

The Grade 3 Bayakoa Stakes for fillies and mares is not part of this year’s schedule. The race has struggled to draw horses in recent years. The race was not run in 2018 and had six-horse fields from 2019 through 2021.

Friday’s opening-day program, which begins at 12:30 p.m. Pacific, has eight races and drew 60 runners. There are six claiming races, including three for maidens, and two starter-allowance races. Los Alamitos does not have a turf course, which limits participation from some Southern California stables.

The 2021 December meeting had 6.78 runners per race, compared to 6.97 in 2019. The 2020 December meeting had 8.71 runners per race at a time when Golden Gate Fields was closed because of a COVID-19 outbreak on the backside.

Overnight purses have been cut in several categories. A maiden special weight race worth $52,000 in December 2021 will be run for $47,000 at this meeting. An allowance race/optional claimer for California-bred sprinters was worth $55,000 in 2021, but only $48,000 this year.

Because of the timing of the Los Alamitos December season, some prominent jockeys skip the meeting to take vacations, while others ride sparingly. Flavien Prat, the leading rider at the Del Mar autumn meeting, which ended Sunday, said he plans to ride stakes on weekends at Los Alamitos. Prat rode Faiza to her recent win.

Ramon Vazquez won the riding titles at the two previous meetings at Los Alamitos this year – the summer and September meetings – and has mounts in six races on Friday. Edwin Maldonado and Edgar Payeras, who were second and third in the standings at the September meeting, are booked to ride Friday.

Juan Hernandez, second to Prat at Del Mar this autumn and the leading rider at the Santa Anita winter-spring and Del Mar meetings earlier this year, is not riding Friday, but is scheduled to ride Saturday.

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