Mother-son team seek elusive win

The mother-and-son team of trainer Elena Andrade and jockey Oscar Andrade Jr. are due a win when the 3-yearold gelding Full Moon has his 2020 debut in the seventh race at Los Alamitos on Friday.

Since the start of the meeting in late December, Andrade, 18, is winless with 10 mounts for his mother, although they did win two races in 2019. Overall, Oscar Andrade Jr. is tied for third in the Quarter Horse standings at the meeting with 34 wins, seven fewer than leader Jesus Ayala.

Full Moon, a filly by Favorite Cartel, won her second start last September and was later third and fifth in allowance

races for nonwinners of two, encountering trouble at the start of both races.

Full Moon starts from post 5 in a six-horse field on Friday. Andrade has been aboard for all of her races.

Full Moon’s main rivals in the 300-yard race are Coronas Moonflash, who drew the rail, and El Sovereign, who has had 14 starts. Coronas Moonflash, trained by Felix Gonzalez, has not raced since a neck loss in a similar allowance race at 300 yards in January.

El Sovereign, a 4-yearold gelding trained by Jose

Flores, was third by a neck in an allowance race for nonwinners of two on July 3. He won a $16,000 claimer for maidens at 330 yards in February in his 11th start.

Friday’s card is the first program at Los Alamitos since the track was the subject of an 80-minute hearing conducted by the California Horse Racing Board on Monday. The racing board approved a program of enhanced oversight and stricter veterinary controls in the aftermath of a series of equine fatalities in recent months.

One aspect of the new protocols is the creation of an entry review panel, which analyzes the veterinary, medication, and training records of all horses entered. A similar panel was created at Southern California Thoroughbred tracks in the spring of 2019 after a series of equine fatalities at Santa Anita.

Overall, the new protocols have affected field size at Los Alamitos. There are seven races on Friday, one fewer than normal, with five sixhorse fields and one sevenhorse field. Last Friday, when some of the protocols were already in place, there were five horses scratched on veterinary grounds, according to discussions during Monday’s hearing.

Field sizes are expected to be stronger on Saturday for a program of lucrative stakes for California-bred Quarter Horses.