Futurity, Starlet Likely to Remain at Los Al

Running a pair of historically relevant and pricey late-season grade I races is not in the best business interest of Los Alamitos Race Course.

In November of 2015, Los Alamitos' Brad McKinzie went so far as to ask the two other Southern California racetracks to take them over because of that aspect. Two weeks of racing in December is not enough to support two grade I races and their purses.

"There is just no way, with a two-week meet, that Los Alamitos can afford to conduct the Starlet (gr. I) and Los Alamitos Futurity (gr. I) and do them justice, and keep them grade I events," McKinzie, Los Alamitos' vice president and general manager of afternoon Thoroughbred racing, said in 2015. "We put it out, that someone in this industry, I think, needs to pick up these two races, which are important national races and hopefully do more with them than we can do now."

When Los Alamitos' winter meet rolled around in 2016, however, the Starlet and Futurity were again on the stakes schedule. Both ran Dec. 10, with Mastery the victor in the Futurity and Abel Tasman the winner in the Starlet.

So why did Los Alamitos retain the two grade I races for 2-year-olds—each with a $300,000 purse—after one of its officials said publically the track could not afford it?

"The reason we ran them is because nobody else wanted to," McKinzie said Dec. 11, referencing efforts to move one or both of the races to winter meets at Del Mar or Santa Anita Park. "We'd like to see these races returned to their former glory. We feel like they should have more purse money, but there's only so much purse money we can generate."

In 2014, when Los Alamitos took over the races after Hollywood Park's closure, the Futurity's purse was dropped from $750,000 to $500,000. In 2015 the purse was $350,000 and it dropped to $300,000 for the 2016 edition. The Starlet went from $500,000 at Hollywood Park in 2013 to $350,000 at Los Alamitos in 2014, and to $300,000 in 2015-16.

"We're still probably going to have an overpayment of purses for the winter meet," McKinzie said. "But (Los Alamitos owner Ed Allred) called me into his office and said, 'We can't lose two grade I races in Southern California.'

"You'd think we'd be able to find a home for one of them, then we would only have to support one, but the other tracks don't want to. Next year it'll be a little easier with 12 days of racing instead of just eight."

So, for the near future, the Futurity and the Starlet will remain at Los Alamitos. Whether the declining purses or quality of fields (the Futurity had five runners in 2016) impact the grade and status of the races in the future remains to be seen.

The roster of winners of the Futurity, which has been run since 1981, features eight champions and three Hall of Fame horses (Best Pal, A.P. Indy, and Point Given  ). In the same time period, Starlet winners include six champions and one Hall of Famer (Serena's Song).