Horse racing notes: Kopion vs. Sweet Azteca tops bill for Los Alamitos meet ...Middle East

SANTA ANITA LEADERS

(Hollywood Meet, final standings)

Jockeys / Wins

Antonio Fresu / 34

Juan Hernandez / 30

Umberto Rispoli / 26

Hector Berrios / 25

Armando Ayuso / 24

Kazushi Kimura / 16

Kyle Frey / 15

Trainers / Wins

Phil D’Amato / 27

John Sadler / 20

Bob Baffert / 16

Mark Glatt / 15

Steve Knapp / 14

Jeff Mullins / 10

Michael McCarthy / 10

UPCOMING STAKES

LOS ALAMITOS

Saturday afternoon

• $100,000 Bertrando Stakes, California-bred 3-year-olds and up, 1 mile

Saturday night

• $30,000 Vandy’s Flash Handicap, 3-year-old quarter horses, 350 yards

• $35,000 1000 Yard Summer Championship, 3-year-olds and up, 1,000 yards

DOWN THE STRETCH

• A matchup of Grade I winners Kopion and Sweet Azteca is shaping up as the highlight of the three-week Los Alamitos thoroughbred meet that begins at 1 p.m. Friday. Trainer Richard Mandella’s 4-year-old filly Kopion, the nation’s top-ranked female sprinter after her win in the Derby City Distaff at Churchill Downs, put in a 6-furlong workout in a fast 1:11 at Santa Anita on Wednesday, getting ready for the 6½-furlong Great Lady M. Stakes on July 5. Richard Baltas’ 5-year-old mare Sweet Azteca is on course to make the Great Lady M. her first start of 2025 after winning that Grade II Great Lady M. and Grade I Beholder Mile in 2024.

• A battle of seven veteran California-bred milers in Saturday’s Bertrando Stakes is the focus of opening weekend for the first of three short Los Alamitos daytime meets this year. Seven-year-old Kings River Knight (Juan Hernandez riding), the 2023 Bertrando winner, seeks his seventh consecutive victory for trainer John Sadler in races of 1 mile on dirt or turf. Mr. Disrespectful (Hector Berrios) could deny Kings River Knight his usual early lead.

• The three stakes during the Orange County track’s nine racing days include the June 28 Los Alamitos Derby.

• Jockey Juan Hernandez and trainer Mark Glatt had the most wins in the Santa Anita winter-spring season that ended Sunday, combining the Classic and Hollywood meets. Top jockeys: Hernandez (83 wins), Umberto Rispoli (63), Antonio Fresu (63), Berrios (62) and Armando Ayuso (50). Top trainers: Glatt (46), Bob Baffert (42), Phil D’Amato (40), Michael McCarthy (34), Jeff Mullins (33) and Sadler (33).

• Journalism was named top horse of the Dec. 26-June 15 Santa Anita season, and King of Gosford was named Horse of the Meet for the Hollywood Meet portion, in press-box balloting. Three-year-old Journalism won the San Felipe Stakes and Santa Anita Derby in Arcadia before winning the Preakness and finishing second the Kentucky Derby and Belmont. Four-year-old King of Gosford capped his meet by getting up in the Shoemaker Mile on turf.

• Favorites continued to win more than normal at Santa Anita, but by at least one measure racing appeared to get more competitive in the 2024-25 season: The pick-six produced 17 carryovers, up from eight in 2023-24. That’s probably the result of the average fields growing from 7.1 last year to 7.5 this year because of the influx of low-level horses from shuttered tracks in Northern California.

• Hopes for a Humboldt County Fair race meeting at Ferndale were revived and then dashed Thursday by the California Horse Racing Board, which entertained 50 minutes of comment about an October dates proposal only to vote it down by the same 4-3 count as its squashed an August plan presented last month. Commissioner Oscar Gonzales, who supports Ferndale racing, quoted a May 23 column in this newspaper in arguing that the board’s decision is a rejection of the state’s rural communities. After voting down Ferndale, the board also went 4-3 against October dates for Fresno. Northern California continues to have no scheduled racing.

• In Los Alamitos quarter-horse racing, Jess Im Worth It and jockey Ricardo Ramirez recovered from an erratic start from post 1 to win Sunday’s Grade I Ed Burke Million Futurity by three-quarters of a length over French Valley and Cesar Franco in 17.588 seconds for 350 yards. Jess Im Worth It is trained by Jesus Nunez for Enrique Gonzalez’s EG High Desert Farms, which owned previous Ed Burke winners Hawkish and Walk Thru Crystal.

• The rich Royal Ascot meeting this week is showing off British contenders for Breeders’ Cup races Oct. 31-Nov. 1 at Del Mar. Explosive wins by John and Thady Gosden-trained 5-year-old Ombudsman in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes and Aiden O’Brien’s 2-year-old Charles Darwin in the Norfolk, and upsets by Harry Eustace’s 5-year-old Docklands in the Queen Anne and Jim Goldie’s 5-year-old American Law in the King Charles III, earned those horses free berths in, respectively, the Breeders’ Cup Turf, Juvenile Turf Sprint, Mile and Turf Sprint.

— Kevin Modesti

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