Three stakes – including a pair of graded events – worth $400,000 highlight the Summer Thoroughbred Festival at Los Alamitos. The season will begin Friday, June 26 and continue through Sunday, July 5.

       The richest event on the calendar is the Grade II, $200,000 Great Lady M. Stakes for fillies & mares at 6 ½ furlongs. Won for the second consecutive year in 2020 by multiple graded stakes winner Marley’s Freedom, the Great Lady M. will be offered Saturday, July 4.

        The other graded race is the Grade III, $100,000 Los Alamitos Derby, which was won a year ago by the Bob Baffert-trained Game Winner. Baffert has won the nine-furlong contest for 3-year-olds, which will also be run July 4, three of the last four years. Before Game Winner, the Derby was won by Shared Belief (2014), Gimme Da Lute (2015), Accelerate (2016), eventual 3-year-old champion West Coast (2017) and Once On Whiskey (2018).

        Besides Marley’s Freedom, the four previous winners of the Great Lady M. at Los Alamitos were Doinghardtimeagain (2014), Fantastic Style (2015), Eclipse Award winner Finest City (2016) and Skye Diamonds (2017). The other stakes on the schedule is the $100,000 Soi Phet for California breds (3-year-olds & up). Formerly known as the Bertrando, the one-mile race will be run Saturday, June 27.

The Soi Phet honors the California bred gelding who won five stakes at Los Alamitos prior to his retirement in the summer of 2019.

        The son of Tizbud, who earned over $1 million after being claimed for $16,000 by trainer Leonard Powell for a partnership in May, 2014, won the race now named for him in 2014 and 2018. His other Los Alamitos stakes wins came in the 2014 Los Alamitos Mile and the E.B. Johnston in 2016 and 2017.

The complete stakes schedule:

Date                              Distance           Purse                       Stakes

Saturday, June 27    One Mile            $100,000           Soi Phet Stakes 

                                                                                              3-Year-Olds & Up

                                                                                              (California bred or sired)

Saturday, July 4       6.5 Furlongs    $200,000    Great Lady M Stakes (GII)

                                                                                       3-Year-Olds & Up, Fillies & Mares

Saturday, July 4          1 1/8th Miles          $100,000           Los Alamitos Derby (Grade III)

                                                                                                      3-Year-Olds