Los Alamitos' Success Difficult to Gauge

Still only in its second year of Thoroughbred-exclusive race meetings, it's hard enough to judge what "success" is during any meet at Los Alamitos Race Course. But this year's September slate, which concluded Sept. 25, is particularly difficult.



With one less racing day (10 days in total) than last year's September meet and two fewer weekend dates, handle comparisons are tough to make. Early reports from the track indicate increases in handle, but drawing conclusions on those totals would not be based on apples-to-apples comparisons.



What is clear, however, is the short meet bridging the Del Mar summer and the Santa Anita Park fall is necessary, and has the support of some of the region's top trainers.



Bob Baffert, who has a history at Los Alamitos dating back to his Quarter Horse days, won the training title with six victories from 18 starters. Only Doug O'Neiil, who tied Steve Miyadi for second with five wins, had more starters during the meet, with 24.



Baffert, who has a string of about 40 horses at Los Al, doesn't shy away from the Orange County track, as he did when the September meet was at Fairplex in Pomona previously. Name any relatively young standout from his barn—including American Pharoah—and odds are they started training at Los Al.



"I have a lot of young horses, and this time of year is when I get my 2-year-olds ready," Baffert said. "They don't offer enough 2-year-old maiden races at the end of Del Mar and I have a lot of horses that didn't train well over (Del Mar's new dirt surface). At Los Al, if you have a good horse, the best horse will win. It's not a gimmicky racetrack, even though people think it would be."



During the September meet, the Hall of Fame conditioner saddled two winners in the three 2-year-old stakes offered—Mt Veeder in the $75,000 Contender Stakes and Toews On Ice in the $100,000 Barretts Juvenile. Mt Veeder is turning around quickly, scheduled for the Sept. 26 FrontRunner (gr. I) at Santa Anita.



"When horses are ready, they should run," Baffert said. "I wouldn't have run them at Pomona, but I think Los Al is a good little track. If they would have called it Santa Anita South, like they did with Gulfstream Park West, I think it would have picked up. What's more important to me is that it's really safe."



One of the measurable aspects of the meet was field size, which was a legitimate concern with Santa Anita opening Sept. 26, just a day after Los Al's closing Friday. But field sizes, on average, stayed essentially the same as 2014. The average field size dropped from 7.70 to 7.66.



"(Racing secretary) Bob Moreno did a great job," said Brad McKinzie, Los Al's general manager of Thoroughbred racing. "We were scared to death about filling races yesterday and today with Santa Anita opening on Saturday. And we didn't have one catastrophic breakdown on this racetrack."

The one regret McKinzie did have about the September meeting dealt with a philosophy track owner Ed Allred has stressed since the Los Al was expanded to a mile to accommodate Thoroughbred meetings early in 2014—they didn't have a big race. With concerns about available purse money after losing the two weekend dates from last year, Los Al cut the $200,000 Los Alamitos Mile.



"We were very worried about our purse generation, so we cut back on some stakes and we didn't have a signature race. That was a mistake," McKinzie said. "In all our other meets, we like to run a signature race opening weekend to make sure everybody knows we're here and we didn't do it this meet. I think it hurt us. It didn't have that exciting race to build on, and we'll fix that next year."



McKinzie didn't rule out bringing back the Los Alamitos Mile, but said the track will attempt to add a race next year that can be used as a prep for the Breeders' Cup, which will return to Santa Anita in 2016.



"We're going to bring back something. We're going to figure out something," McKinzie said. "It's hard when you're trying to put together races so you don't bother Santa Anita's stakes schedule and Del Mar's stakes schedule, and where you fit. I'm to the point where I'm getting ready to say, 'the hell with it' and we'll just put in whatever races we want. But we will come up with a signature race in here, particularly with the Breeders' Cup coming back to California. I think, this time of year, we can run a race that could be a mini Breeders' Cup prep and that's our goal."



In the jockey title race, Fernando Perez pulled away in the standings with 15 victories, besting second-place finisher Tiago Pereira, who had nine wins.



Perez, 29, is a native of Guadalajara, Mexico and shared Los Al's summer meet title with Santiago Gonzalez, Mario Gutierrez, and Edwin Maldonado.



"I tied for leading rider here before this and we came into the meet with a lot of confidence,'' Perez said "I had a chance to ride many of the best horses in each race."



Tommy Town Thoroughbreds was the top owner with three wins during the meet.