From Los Alamitos Publicity
CYPRESS, Calif. – Since daytime thoroughbred racing returned to Los Alamitos in the summer of 2014, the Orange County track has been the place where the stars have come to play.
Months before favored I’m No Patsy won the first race of the inaugural Summer Thoroughbred Festival on July 3, 2014, Los Alamitos was already playing host to an eventual champion and one of the most popular horses ever to compete in California.
After Hollywood Park ran its final race on December 22, 2013, California Chrome, who had completed his 2-year-old season by winning the King Glorious – the final stakes race ever run at Hollywood Park – he was moved to Los Alamitos.
Owned by Steve Coburn and Perry Martin and trained by Art Sherman, the son of Lucky Pulpit and the Not for Love mare Love the Chase spent the rest of his brilliant career based at Los Alamitos.
His works over the track were much anticipated and well attended and Sherman was always willing to interact with his fans – better known as Chromies – as well as the racing media.
Before California Chrome was done, he had won the Santa Anita Derby, Kentucky Derby, Preakness and grassy Hollywood Derby in 2014 en route to his Eclipse Awards as champion 3-year-old male and Horse of the Year and the Dubai World Cup, Pacific Classic and Awesome Again Stakes in 2016 as well as another Horse of the Year title.
California Chrome’s next-to-last start was his lone start over what was his home track for some three years. He dominated nine rivals, winning the $180,000 Winter Challenge Stakes by 12 lengths in a track record 1:40.03 for the 1 1/16 miles.
No less than 10 other champions have competed at Los Alamitos in the ensuing years, beginning with Take Charge Brandi, who won the first locally run Starlet Stakes during the 2014 Winter meet, wrapping up the Eclipse Award as the 2-year-old filly champion six weeks after her stunning 66-1 upset in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.
A year later, Abel Tasman won the second Starlet at Los Alamitos, the first of six Grade I victories – which included the Kentucky Oaks – in a career that saw her capture the Eclipse as the top 3-year-old filly of 2016.
The Los Alamitos Derby – which was known as the Swaps Stakes when offered at Hollywood Park between 1974-2013 – has produced four horses who were Eclipse Award winners and one who was a Breeders’ Cup Classic champion and Horse of the Year.
Shared Belief, who won the final Hollywood Futurity in Inglewood in 2013, won the first Los Alamitos Derby in 2014, scoring by 4 ¼ lengths for a partnership and Hall of Fame trainer Jerry Hollendorfer.
Three of the next five Los Alamitos Derby winners were 2016 hero Accelerate, who went on to become the Breeders’ Cup Classic winner and Horse of the Year in 2018, West Coast, the 3-year-old champion of 2017 and Game Winner, the 2019 winner who was the 2-year-old titlist in 2018.
A little more than five months before his Los Alamitos Derby win, Accelerate finished second, defeated by a half-length by Westbrook in a race at six furlongs April 17 during the Spring meet. A neck behind him that day? Fellow debuter Arrogate, who went on to become the 2016 Horse of the Year and a multiple graded stakes winner for Baffert and Juddmonte Farms.
The Great Lady M. Stakes, a Grade II sprint for older fillies and mares, was another holdover from Hollywood Park, where it was called the Sequoia Handicap (1941-1978) and A Gleam Handicap (1979-2013), has been graced by champions Finest City and Gamine.
A daughter of City Zip owned by Seltzer Thorougbreds LLC and trained by Ian Kruljac, Finest City won the 2016 renewal more than six months before her win in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint clinched an Eclipse Award as the nation’s top female sprinter.
Gamine, the female sprint champion of 2020, won the 2021 Great Lady M. by a record 10 lengths for Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert and owner Michael Lund Peterson.
Although he never won a graded stakes, Soi Phet, a California bred gelding who earned over $1 million after being claimed for $16,000 by trainer Leonard Powell for a partnership that included Mathilde Powell, the Benowitz Family Trust and Paul Viskovich, was one of the most popular horses to race at Los Alamitos.
The son of Tizbud won the Bertrando – the first stakes run at Los Alamitos on July 3, 2014 and it was the first of five stakes successes for him, including another score in the Bertrando as a 10-year-old in 2018.
Baffert, who had much quarter horse success at Los Alamitos before switching to thoroughbreds full time well over 30 years ago, has been a big supporter of the local thoroughbred meets and the dominant trainer.
He has won or shared 14 training titles and has 36 stakes wins, including six in a row (2017-2022) in the Starlet and Los Alamitos Derby and the first seven (2014-2020) Futurities.
Some of the Southern California circuit’s top trainers have also enjoyed success at Los Alamitos. Doug O’Neill, Peter Miller, John Sadler and Phil D’Amato rank among the top 10 in wins in the 26 meets run since 2014.
Hall of Fame jockeys Mike Smith and Kent Desormeaux have made the most of their opportunities at Los Alamitos. They both enter 2023 with 12 stakes victories, one fewer than all-time leader Corey Black, who won 13 during the Orange County Fair meets (1977-1991).
Edwin Maldonado is on the cusp of becoming the all-time leading jockey here. He enters the year with 120 wins, seven less than Martin Pedroza.
Los Alamitos has also been a venue where wealth has been distributed. Some of the smaller stables on the circuit and some jockeys have thrived over the uniquely shaped track which features one of the longest stretches in North America.
Since 2014, 229 different trainers and 137 different riders have won at least one race.
Many more figure to be added to the two lists in the coming years as Los Alamitos continues to build on its daytime thoroughbred legacy.