Saturday’s $403,500 Los Alamitos Oaks was a lopsided race. Dreams Divine, the 3-5 favorite, ran to expectations.
Sunday’s $213,300 El Primero Del Ano Derby for 3-year-olds at 400 yards appears to be the opposite. There are several runners capable of winning an intriguing race.
Post time for the El Primero Del Ano Derby is 11:27 p.m., Eastern, or 8:27 p.m., Pacific. Post time for the first race of the Sunday evening program at Los Alamitos is 8:25 p.m., Eastern. Wagering is available through DRFBets.com.
Flokie (4) was the fastest qualifier from the time trials on March 8, benefiting from a clean start to win by a length in his first start since a third in the $1.9 million Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity on Dec. 15. He ran 400 yards in 19.72 seconds.
Flokie has not been sharp from the gate at times in recent races, so the March 8 performance was encouraging.
Flokie is the 2-1 second choice on the morning-line to Tell Cartel (9). Tell Cartel was a trial race winner in 19.85 seconds. Tell Cartel did win the $190,600 Los Alamitos Winter Derby in February in 19.61 seconds, and appears to be in peak form for trainer Matt Fales.
Of the two, Tell Cartel has a favorable draw here, and is a slight choice over Flokie. It is easy to support Sass Go Blue (3) in an exacta. Sass Go Blue, Tell Cartel and Flokie were the first three finishers of the Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Racing Association Breeders’ Futurity at 350 yards in October.
Sass Go Blue, trained by Mike Casselman, was fourth in the Winter Derby, beaten three-quarters of a length, and won a division of the El Primero trials in 19.89 seconds. A repeat of that could put him in the first three on Sunday evening.