Los Alamitos Derby

With Saratoga opening, NYRA TV Analyst and Handicapper Andy Serling will be ultra busy over the next seven plus weeks, spending countless hours on every card as he tries to pick winners and give his viewers valuable betting advice. But he's not complaining. It's hard to imagine anyone who loves Saratoga more. To talk about the meet, Serling joined the team on this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland. Serling, who has been attending the meet on a regular basis since 1975, was the Green Group Guest of...

Reincarnate (c, 3, Good Magic--Allanah, by Scat Daddy), 13th for trainer Tim Yakteen after racing on a scorching early pace in the GI Kentucky Derby, returned to the Bob Baffert barn with a stylish 2 1/2-length win in Saturday evening's $125,000 Los Alamitos Derby. The even-money favorite showed the way through early fractions of :23.33 and :47.75. Racing under pressure heading into the far turn, he leveled off nicely into the stretch and was never seriously threatened by last out GI Santa Anita Derby third-place finisher and second-choice Skinner (Curlin)....

Just like riding a bicycle. Starting his first horses since serving a 90-day suspension issued by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, trainer Bob Baffert won the two races in which he had entered horses on the Saturday card at Los Alamitos. Baffert's victories included a win by High Connection (Connect) in the Los Alamitos Derby. It was Baffert's sixth straight win in the race that used to be known as the Swaps S. and his 12th overall in the mile-and-an-eighth contest. Baffert had last started horses on Apr. 2. Afterward,...

Three stakes--including a graded event--worth a combined $425,000 highlight the Los Angeles County Fair meet at Los Alamitos. The 10-day season is scheduled to begin Friday, June 24 and continue through Sunday, July 10. Racing will be conducted Friday-Sunday opening weekend (June 24-26) and the final week (July 8-10) and Friday-Monday (July 1-4) the middle week. The July 4 program is a special holiday card and will include a handicapping contest with two berths in the 2023 NTRA National Handicapping Championship in Las Vegas on the line. Post time will...

Classier went wire-to-wire and resolutely held off stablemate Defunded to give trainer Bob Baffert his fifth straight win in the GIII Los Alamitos Derby Sunday. Sent off at 6-5, Classier was on the lead through fractions of :22.98 and :47.01. Defunded, the 3-5 favorite, rolled up to challenge the pacesetter after three-quarters in 1:11.08 and, while Classier began inching away in upper stretch, the favorite battled back in a stirring stretch battle to the wire. Classier refused to yield and earned his first graded victory in determined fashion. "I waited...

Bob Baffert has two strong chances to take his fifth straight edition of the GIII Los Alamitos Derby Sunday. The race was originally scheduled for Saturday, but was brought back as an extra Sunday when it failed to fill the first time. Leading the Baffert duo is Defunded (Dialed In), who was fourth in both the Apr. 3 GI Santa Anita Derby and the May 1 GII Pat Day Mile. The gelding enters off a runner-up effort in the GIII Affirmed S. at Santa Anita June 13. Baffert also saddles...

The GIII Los Alamitos Derby will not be run as originally scheduled Saturday, July 3, Los Alamitos announced Wednesday. The race for 3-year-olds at 1 1/8 miles will be brought back as an extra for Sunday, July 4 in hopes of drawing more entrants. Sunday is the penultimate day of Los Alamitos's Summer Thoroughbred Festival. Entries for the July 4 program will be taken Thursday, July 1.

Three stakes races worth $450,000--including a pair of graded events--will highlight the Summer Thoroughbred Festival at Los Alamitos. The seven-day meet is scheduled to begin Friday, June 25 and continue through Monday, July 5. Racing will be conducted Friday-Sunday (June 25-27) the first week and Friday-Monday (July 2-5) the second. Post time will be 1 p.m. The richest event on the calendar is the $200,000 GII Great Lady M. S. for fillies & mares at 6 1/2 furlongs July 5. The other graded race is the $150,000 GIII Los Alamitos...

So this dismal year slinks under our resentful glare towards the back gate, like an uninvited guest who has wrecked a party by outrageous behavior. Soon, perhaps, there will be a cheerful ringing of the doorbell and we can welcome one to revive spirits around the world. In the meantime, somehow, the Thoroughbred is managing to hold together the strands linking all our yesterdays and whatever tomorrow may bring. I've often remarked, during recent months, that horsemen will be well served by the patient perspectives they require even at the...

"Bob's your uncle." It's one of those baffling British expressions, of no coherent origin. You use it much as the French would say: "et voila!" Typically, it rounds off some counsel so elementary that the dividends are almost mechanical. Do this simple thing, and "you're all set". For instance: go to a horse sale; buy a colt with Classic pedigree; put him into training with a silver-haired dude in California--and Bob's your uncle. Not that it can have been terribly easy for Bob Baffert to show his most avuncular side...

The flashy Uncle Chuck went from maiden winner to graded winner as he ran away from just three foes as the heavy favorite here. A seven-length romper going a flat mile at Santa Anita June 12, the half-brother to brilliant debut winner and sire Maclean's Music (Distorted Humor) was bet down to 13-1 in last week's GI Kentucky Derby future pool and gave his backers reason to feel good about their chances Saturday. With stablemate and MGSW Thousand Words the main danger on paper, the leggy dark bay chased the...

Following a disappointing spring which saw two top Bob Baffert trainees-Nadal (Blame) and Charlatan (Speightstown)-get bounced off the GI Kentucky Derby trail, the horseman emerges with a pair of live contenders in Saturday's GIII Los Alamitos Derby. The more accomplished of the two is Albaugh Family Stables and Spendthrift Farm's Thousand Words (Pioneerof the Nile), the winner of his first three starts, including last winter's GII Los Alamitos Futurity and the GIII Robert B. Lewis S. Feb. 1. After fading to fourth behind stablemate Authentic (Into Mischief) in the Mar....