LOS ALAMITOS LEADERS

(Through Sunday)

Jockeys / Wins

Edgar Payeras / 4

Antonio Fresu / 3

Kazushi Kimura / 3

Ricardo Ramirez / 2

Ricardo Gonzalez / 2

(10 tied) / 1

Trainers / Wins

Doug O’Neill / 3

Richard Baltas / 2

Jesus Uranga / 2

(19 tied) / 1

UPCOMING STAKES

LOS ALAMITOS

Saturday

• $100,000 Dark Mirage Stakes, fillies and mares, 3-year-olds and up, 1 mile

DOWN THE STRETCH

• Bob Baffert-trained Nothing Like You looks best among the fillies and mares trying to rediscover the winner’s circle in Saturday’s Dark Mirage Stakes, highlight of closing weekend at the short Los Alamitos thoroughbred meet. Nothing Like You (Juan Hernandez riding) is 0 for 5 at the stakes level since winning the 2023 Starlet at Los Al and the 2024 Santa Anita Oaks. But the 4-year-old filly’s five opponents are a collective 0 for 18 in stakes in the same span.

• Baeza (Hector Berrios) and Goal Oriented (Irad Ortiz Jr.), who have been chasing top 3-year-olds Sovereignty and Journalism, are 2-1 and 5-2 on the morning line as the two Santa Anita-based colts head the $1 million, Grade I Pennsylvania Derby on Saturday. The 10-horse field for the 1⅛-mile race includes Gosger (Luis Saez), Magnitude (Ben Curtis) and Big Truzz (Javier Castellano).

• Baeza is No. 9 this week in the Longines-sponsored rankings of contenders for the Breeders’ Cup Classic, main event of the Oct. 31-Nov. 1 Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar. Sovereignty remains No. 1 in the rankings determined by racing reporters, handicappers and officials, followed by Fierceness, Sierra Leone, Mindframe, Journalism, Forever Young, Antiquarian and Nysos.

• Nysos hasn’t recorded a workout since being scratched from the Aug. 30 Pacific Classic at Del Mar, and wasn’t nominated for the Sept. 27 Goodwood Stakes, Santa Anita’s prep for the Breeders’ Cup Classic. The Santa Anita fall meet opens Sept. 26.

• Spice Runner ($12.38) and Jose Ortiz won for trainer Steve Asmussen, catching favorite Comport and Tyler Gaffalione, in Saturday’s Iroquois Stakes at Churchill Downs. It was the first race awarding qualifying points for the May 2 Kentucky Derby.

• In Los Al night quarter-horse racing, Hott Temptation ($11.20) and jockey Martin Arriaga held off Aj Born Runnin and Jose Nicasio to win the Grade I Mildred Vessels Memorial Handicap on Saturday, earning the 3-year-old filly a spot in the Dec. 13 Champion of Champions.

• Kazushi Kimura, three wins from 1,000 in his eight years riding in the United States and Canada, has mounts in six of the eight races at Los Alamitos on Friday afternoon. He’s looking to join at least a dozen current Southern California jockeys who have passed that career milestone, a list led by Kent Desormeaux (6,190) and Mike Smith (5,786).

• Efrain Hernandez was not named on horses Friday and Saturday as the jockey recovers from a fall with Malibu Rocks in Sunday afternoon’s second race at Los Alamitos. Four-year-old Malibu Rocks clipped the heels of Majestic Palisades on the far turn of the 1-mile claiming race. Hernandez was taken to Long Beach Memorial Hospital as a precaution after complaining of body soreness.

• The death of the 2-year-old quarter-horse colt Bandera de Mexico, the result of an injury in last Sunday night’s seventh race at Los Al, was the 22nd horse fatality from musculoskeletal and other causes in racing and training at Santa Anita, Del Mar and Los Al since the start of the California racing season Dec. 26. That’s one more than occurred in the same period last year and one less than the average for the past three years, going by data on the California Horse Racing Board website. Deaths have increased this year at Los Al and declined at Santa Anita and Del Mar compared to averages in recent years.

• Del Mar announced the Cary Grant Stakes is being renamed The Chosen Vron Stakes to honor the two-time California-bred Horse of the Year who was retired at age 7 in March. The Chosen Vron’s 19 victories in 25 career starts included two wins in the Cary Grant, a November race for Cal-bred sprinters.

— Kevin Modesti

People are talking about the Triple Crown, but not in the way that many in horse racing would prefer.

After the announcement Tuesday that the connections of Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty have opted to skip the Preakness Stakes on May 17, spoiling any slim chance of a Triple Crown sweep this year, hard questions are being asked about U.S. racing’s centerpiece series.

What does it say about the Triple Crown if one of America’s great trainers, Bill Mott, and the world’s leading breeder-owner, Dubai-based Godolphin, choose to bypass the second jewel to wait for the Belmont Stakes on June 7 and gear up for big races in the summer and fall?

Are the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont due for a change if the format in place for the past 56 years is too arduous for a colt whose handlers want to “look long-term,” as Mott put it after Sovereignty and jockey Junior Alvarado upset Journalism and Umberto Rispoli in Saturday’s Derby?

The view here is that there’s a case to be made for changes, but the reasons aren’t about the Triple Crown per se.

It’s important to know a few things about the Triple Crown.

To begin with, the Derby, Preakness and Belmont are separate events, inaugurated, respectively, 150, 152 and 158 years ago. Not until a few years after Sir Barton completed the first sweep of the three major races for 3-year-olds in 1919 did writers begin calling it a “triple crown,” and even when Gallant Fox completed the second in 1930 the phrase with capital letters still wasn’t yet ritualistically used in newspaper coverage. The three events weren’t originally meant to combine for a test of thoroughbred greatness or as the key racing-industry publicity machine that it has become. They’re significant individually as well as collectively.

That’s why, for most real racing fans, it’s annoying that the public is assumed to tune out the Preakness and/or Belmont if a Triple Crown isn’t on the line – baseball fans don’t leave once there’s no chance for a no-hitter, and NFL fans don’t lose interest in the season if no team is going undefeated.

Also, it’s important to realize that the debate about whether to make changes in the series’ current format has been going on for decades, ever since new breeding strategies began to de-emphasize stamina and sturdiness and new training methods began to make horses start racing later and compete less frequently. Top trainers and voices in the sport have called for shortening the 1 1/4-mile Derby, 1 3/16-mile Preakness and 1 1/2-mile Belmont, and widening the two- and three-week gaps between them. Those calls have not let up as, now, five apparently healthy Derby winners in seven years have missed the Preakness (two of those having to do with a disqualification and the COVID pandemic).

Those calls have lost some steam, though, since American Pharoah broke a 37-year Triple Crown drought in 2015 and Justify became the 13th Triple Crown winner in 2018, those horses showing that the best modern thoroughbreds can overcome the old hard conditions.

Finally, for those who would like to see more serious Triple Crown bids and successful sweeps, it’s important to see that this wouldn’t necessarily happen if changes made it easier for a Derby winner to run in the Preakness and a winner of the first two legs to run in the Belmont. Changes would make it easier for other good horses to run too. In many years the challenge for any one horse would get harder.

This is not to say changes wouldn’t be wise. It is to say if changes are to be made, they should be made because the people who run the Preakness, in Baltimore, and the Belmont, in New York, think it’s beneficial to those individual races for a new plan to be worked out.

The Preakness and Belmont would be stronger if more of the best healthy 3-year-olds were running, whether or not they include a Triple Crown prospect in a given year. Then it would be easier to tell your non-racing-fan friends that those events are worth at least five minutes of TV-watching time.

Because of changes in sports and media that are mostly beyond the racing industry’s control, the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness and Belmont in some years have remained prominent while other impressive things happening at American tracks have slipped out of the spotlight.

The solution to the loss of attention isn’t to try to create more Triple Crowns bids, it’s to try to create more awareness of those “other” stories and the fun of trying to predict what will happen next. (Fun indeed: When you’re right, they hand you money.)

The 150th Preakness, a week from Saturday, would be better if Sovereignty and Derby third-place finisher Baeza weren’t already declared out. But it still has at least two Derby horses (second-place Journalism and 16th-place American Promise, the latter seeking trainer D. Wayne Lukas’ eighth Preakness win); Wood Memorial winner Rodriguez, trying to give Bob Baffert a record-extending ninth Preakness; and, as of Wednesday morning, as many as seven other horses with stakes credentials listed as probable or possible entrants. As always, Preakness handicappers must figure out if horses like Journalism, who ran well in the Derby, will like the new conditions and tactical dynamics or if other horses will thrive.

The field, post positions and morning-line odds will be set Monday.

If people want to talk about the state of the Triple Crown, tell them its future is a rich topic for debate this year, but so is the Preakness in any year.

Follow horse racing correspondent Kevin Modesti at X.com/KevinModesti.

As Santa Anita prepares for the biggest race of its winter-spring season, the Santa Anita Derby a week from Saturday, there’s good news and bad news.

The good news is that horses don’t read the bad news.

Undeterred by the burdens of us mere bipeds, an intriguing field of 3-year-olds will venture out of their stalls for the $750,000, Grade I race April 6.

Nominations will be revealed Friday and the field will be set Wednesday. Trainer Bob Baffert is expected to choose two or three horses from among Imagination, Maymun, Wine Me Up, Wynstock and Coach Prime; he said Thursday he’ll know who he’s running closer to entry time. Trainer Phil D’Amato confirmed Thursday that Stronghold will run, after considering going to the Blue Grass Stakes in Kentucky. Reported possibilities include Mc Vay, Tapalo, EJ Won the Cup and Tessuto.

For various reasons, it’s less likely fans will see the winner of the May 4 Kentucky Derby in the Santa Anita Derby than in one of the other major Triple Crown preps being run this Saturday and next at tracks in the United States and Dubai.

With clouds hanging over Santa Anita racing these days, it sure doesn’t feel like a year California horses and fans will enjoy Kentucky Derby glory.

There are actual clouds. Santa Anita officials announced Thursday morning that predictions for more rain have forced cancelation of races this Saturday and Sunday; they’ll be made up with an extra card Thursday, April 4, and extra races the following three days.

There are economic clouds. Santa Anita executives paint a dark picture of the future after the California Horse Racing Board disdained their warnings and voted 6-0 last week to award autumn racing dates to Pleasanton, in Northern California’s East Bay, denying Southern California tracks a revenue haul from simulcast betting.

And there are clouds of controversy. Horses from Baffert’s barn, which has produced six Kentucky Derby winners and two Triple Crown winners, are ineligible for the Derby because of the eccentric decision by Churchill Downs to add a third year to his ban over Medina Spirit’s 2021 disqualification and the decision by Baffert and owners not to transfer top young horses to other trainers this year.

Baffert’s top 3-year-old, undefeated Nysos, is sidelined. But his top active 3-year-old, Muth, second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in November before winning the San Vicente Stakes in January, is the 8-5 morning-line favorite (against 9-5 Timberlake) in the Arkansas Derby this Saturday. His Santa Anita Derby prospects all have top-class potential, which under the circumstances means they’re vying to be contenders for the May 18 Preakness and June 8 Belmont Stakes.

The top local candidate for the Kentucky Derby looks to be Stronghold, who won the Sunland (N.M.) Derby with jockey Antonio Fresu after finishing second to Wynstock in the Los Alamitos Futurity. Stronghold rated 20th (at 48-1 odds) in the round of Kentucky Derby future betting that closed March 17, and heisn’t in the top 20 in the National Thoroughbred Racing Association’s weekly 3-year-old rankings. California partisans will root for the son of Ghostzapper to grab the nation’s attention in the Santa Anita Derby.

Weirder things have happened. Horses and horseplayers have a way of shrugging off circumstances.

On a grand scale, there was Secretariat emerging in the era of Vietnam, Watergate and gas lines to complete the first Triple Crown sweep in 25 years and be one thing Americans could agree upon. And Santa Anita running hours after the January 1994 Northridge earthquake, and Fairplex Park and other U.S. tracks making racing the first sport to resume after 9/11 by running two days later.

More on the nose, there was what came after Southern California racing was hit by the closure of Hollywood Park in late 2013 and the announcement of Fairplex’s demise in early 2014: In those ashes, a colt named American Pharoah was stirring, growing into the 2015 Triple Crown winner. And there was the year I think of now.

In 2005, California racing and horses were under fire. Hollywood Park had been all but officially put up for sale, the beginning of the end. Three high-profile California trainers faced “milkshake” doping allegations. A winter of rain had interrupted training for the state’s Derby hopefuls. West Coast horses were dismissed with odds of 20-1 to 50-1 on the Derby morning line. Typical was a colt named Giacomo, who went to the Derby on a five-race losing streak.

“The Golden State needs a (Kentucky) Derby win,” I wrote from Louisville.

History students will know that Giacomo, whose workout schedule had luckily avoided the rain, won that Kentucky Derby with jockey Mike Smith and paid $102.60, while three other Santa Anita Derby graduates ran fourth, fifth and sixth.

Kinza stamped herself as the filly to beat in the Santa Anita Oaks on Saturday, traveling gate to wire to win Saturday’s $100,000 Grade III Las Virgenes Stakes at Santa Anita for trainer Bob Baffert.

Whether the daughter of Carpe Diem is a serious contender for the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs on May 3 is another matter, but the winner showed enough Saturday to vault her atop the other 3-year-old fillies on the local circuit.

Given a characteristically strong ride by Juan Hernandez, even-money favorite Kinza passed her first test around two turns with flying colors, easily holding off 6-5 second choice Kopion by two lengths. She’s a Tempest, a 16-1 longshot, finished another 1½ lengths behind in third.

Kinza, who broke her maiden by 7½ lengths at Santa Anita on Dec. 29, carved out fractions of 22.99, 46.91 and 1:10.82 en route to a time of 1:37.03 for the mile run over a fast main track.

“This filly, she has a lot of talent,” Hernandez said. “She broke on top. Last time she showed a lot of speed. Today it was a faster pace, but she handled it pretty good. I felt like I was putting in a really good pace. My feeling was that she was really comfortable in front. I never asked her to go that fast. She was doing it all on her own.”

The only question was whether Kinza could successfully navigate two turns, but longtime Baffert assistant Jimmy Barnes didn’t see that as a problem going in.

“She acts like a filly that can handle (two turns),” Barnes said. “You don’t know until you do it, but she had shown in the morning in her workouts that she could go further. I was more concerned there was so much speed, with a small field and a lot of speed.”

Kopion, ridden by Flavien Prat, went into the race off a maiden victory by 3¾ lengths at Del Mar on Nov. 26 and a 5¾-length win in the Grade III Santa Ynez Stakes at Santa Anita on Jan. 7. The Omaha Beach filly also was making her two-turn debut.

Kinza and Kopion may duel again in the $300,000 Grade II Santa Anita Oaks on April 6.

Palos Verdes Stakes

Big City Lights, a 5-year-old California-bred by Mr. Big sent postward as the 2-5 favorite, got the bob at the wire in the $100,000 Grade III stakes race and edged pacesetting Hopkins by a nose. Final time for the 6 furlongs was 1:09.91.

“Had it all the way,” cracked winning trainer Richard Mandella, who came up second best in the day’s other two stakes races.

Hopkins, the 9-5 second choice, set the pace with fractions of 22.75 and 45.09 and appeared like he was going to hold on for the victory, but Big City Lights and Prat put on a strong closing surge in the final 50 yards.

“I was (concerned) he didn’t get away running like he usually does,” Mandella said. “I noticed that he did grab a quarter (stepped on his own foot). I didn’t think it was bad, but it was enough to set him back the first part. He showed his class, he dug in and fought it out anyway.”

San Marcos Stakes

Missed the Cut, the 6-5 favorite, got a rail-skimming ride by Joel Rosario and won the $100,000 Grade III turf race for 4-year-olds and older under the tutelage of trainer John Sadler.