Los Alamitos’ short spring thoroughbred meet ends this weekend with Sweet Azteca trying to cap a season of streaks.
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It started with Shea Brennan winning the June 20 Bertrando Stakes for California-breds to give red-hot trainer Phil D’Amato a stakes victory for the fifth consecutive weekend at Santa Anita and Los Alamitos. It continued with Sabino Canyon winning the June 27 Los Alamitos Derby to give trainer Bob Baffert his 10th consecutive victory in that race. And now it can conclude with Sweet Azteca winning Saturday’s Grade II Great Lady M Stakes for the third year in a row.
Six-year-old Sweet Azteca, who will be ridden for the first time by Armando Ayuso, is a deserving 3-5 on the morning line in a field of seven fillies and mares for the 6½-furlong sprint.
The past two years, Sweet Azteca lowered the track record to 1:14.33 and then 1:14.32 in winning the Great Lady M with jockey Juan Hernandez, the latter victory coming as a 7-2 second choice against 1-5 favorite Kopion.
The competition doesn’t look as strong this time, although California-bred Grand Slam Smile (William Antongeorgi riding) will always give her best, Baffert’s Nooni (Ricardo Gonzalez) brings stakes-winning class into her first start in 19 months, and A.Z. Wildcat (Hector Berrios) can challenge the favorite for the early lead.
The stumbling blocks for Sweet Azteca are that she hasn’t raced since August and has only five recent workouts for trainer Richard Baltas, and she’ll have to start from the No. 1 post position. But a long layoff didn’t trouble her when she won the Great Lady M a year ago in her season debut. And the rail hasn’t been bad in 6½-furlong races at this meet for horses with early speed; post 1 has produced winners in three of eight races at the distance, each running first or second in the first quarter-mile.
Racing starts at 1 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Los Al also has quarter-horse and thoroughbred racing Sunday evening.
To top off the season-of-streaks theme, it’s possible the spring Los Al meet will see repeats by its 2025 champion jockey and trainer. Kazushi Kimura, who took the riding title with 10 wins a year ago, goes into the final three days tied with Ayuso with five wins, one behind leader Edgar Payeras. Peter Miller, who tied Steve Knapp for the training title with six wins last year, is tied with Jesus Uranga with three wins; Baffert leads with five.
TV OR NOT TV
Fans flipping to FanDuel TV at the start of July are seeing races and replays and hearing commentary from track feeds but none of the in-studio and on-track analysis the network has featured since it began as TVG in 1999. It was announced in March that FanDuel would start winding down its racing coverage and shut it down by the end of 2027.
Coverage of Saturday’s Great Lady M. Stakes at Los Alamitos will be on America’s Day at the Races on Fox Sports 1. Los Alamitos announced an “enhanced simulcast presentation” for its daytime thoroughbred meet on closing weekend – with Kurt Hoover, Mike Willman and Dave Weaver – and its night quarter-horse and thoroughbred meet starting Sunday; it said that can be found on FanDuel, and online at LosAlamitos.com, RTN.tv and wagering platforms.
FanDuel TV plans to honor commitments to cover Del Mar’s 2026 meets July 17-Sept. 7 and Nov. 6-29, as well as the Keeneland fall meet that includes the Oct. 30-31 Breeders’ Cup.
The new experience of watching FanDuel TV was summed up this way by racing writer, handicapper and publicist Richard Eng: “I have (it) on background in my office. Without analysts, and with the constant music, it’s like being in my local Las Vegas racebook. Just no one to tell me who to bet. That doesn’t mean I don’t miss (the hosts). They are all very good at what they do.”
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‘BIG A’ BOWS OUT
In an emotional scene familiar to patrons of shuttered tracks in California, racing fans in New York bid farewell to Aqueduct after 132 years on Sunday. A 6-year-old gelding named Assume Nothing, with jockey Jaime Rodriguez, won the final race and paid $18.42.
New York is consolidating downstate racing at the rebuilt Belmont Park, on Long Island, scheduled to open in September. Aqueduct, in Queens, hosted the second Breeders’ Cup in 1985 (the late Hollywood Park hosted the first in 1984) and featured many of the greatest horses over the decades, but it’s not being remembered for glamor.
Retired jockey Richard Migliore, who grew up in Brooklyn, told The Guardian: “There’s a grittiness to Aqueduct that you don’t get at Belmont, certainly don’t get at Saratoga. At Aqueduct, you get the real fans. They’re hardcore. They know the game. If you made a mistake, they’d let you know about it. But that’s kind of part of New York, right?”
SARATOGA OPENS
Saratoga’s two-month summer season, America’s most prestigious racing meet, opens Friday – assuming the track in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., pushes through the heat wave that has caused cancellations and postponements at eight tracks in the eastern United States on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
It features 17 Grade I flat races (and three Grade I hurdle races), including the Aug. 8 Whitney and Aug. 29 Travers for 3-year-olds. The owners of Baeza are looking at the Whitney as a tiebreaker with Magnitude, whom they beat in the 2025 Pennsylvania Derby and lost to in the Stephen Foster. The Grade II Jim Dandy for 3-year-olds on Aug. 1 is expected to draw Renegade and Commandment, runners-up in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes, but not Golden Tempo, winner of both.
SHORTENING UP
• Magnitude is the new No. 1 in the National Thoroughbred Racing Association rankings after winning the Grade I Stephen Foster Stakes over Baeza, Sovereignty and White Abarrio at Churchill Downs on Saturday. Four-year-old Magnitude jumped over 5-year-old Nysos in this week’s poll. The rest of the top 10 halfway through 2026: Golden Tempo, Forever Young, Baeza, Sovereignty, White Abarrio, Nitrogen, Book’em Danno and Deterministic.
• Flightline, the undefeated 2022 Horse of the Year, scored his first U.S. victory as a sire when the 2-year-old colt Flight Command (out of Stonetonic) won his debut by 10 lengths at 6-5 odds with Manny Franco riding for trainer Rudy Rodriguez at Aqueduct on July 25. A 2-year-old colt named Demian (out of Mira Alta) had given Flightline his first winner overall in a June 13 race in Tokyo.
• In a team-up of Hall of Fame jockeys, Mike Smith has hired Gary Stevens to replace Brad Pegram as his agent beginning at Del Mar.
• Lethal Cowboy 123 stormed to his first victory as a 4-year-old, winning by three-quarters of a length with jockey Edwin Escobedo for trainer Marc Jungers in the Grade I Vessels Maturity at Los Alamitos on Sunday night. The win earned Lethal Cowboy 123 a spot in the Dec. 12 Champion of Champions, the biggest race for older quarter horses.
Follow horse racing correspondent Kevin Modesti at X.com/KevinModesti.
LOS ALAMITOS LEADERS
(Through Sunday, thoroughbred meet)
Jockeys / Wins
Edgar Payeras / 6
Kazushi Kimura / 5
Armando Ayuso / 5
Ricardo Gonzalez 4
Joel Rosario / 4
Tiago Pereira / 4
Ricardo Ramirez / 3
Armando Aguilar / 3
Trainers / Wins
Bob Baffert / 5
Peter Miller / 3
Jesus Uranga / 3
Dean Pederson / 2
Martin Valenzuela / 2
Rafael DeLeon / 2
Craig Dollase / 2
Van Belvoir / 2
Doug O’Neill / 2
Genaro Vallejo / 2
UPCOMING STAKES
LOS ALAMITOS THOROUGHBREDS
Saturday
• $200,000, Grade II Great Lady M Stakes, fillies and mares, 3-year-olds and up, 6½ furlongs
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LOS ALAMITOS QUARTER HORSES
Sunday
• $30,000, Grade III Independence Day Handicap, 3 and up, 300 yards