Los Alamitos stakes upset leaves 3 tied for jockey title

Smoovin Saturday and jockey Tiago Pereira won the closing-day King Glorious Stakes at Los Alamitos and played spoiler in the leading-jockey contest.

Juan Hernandez, Kazushi Kimura and Armando Ayuso tied for the title with six victories apiece after each had a chance to grab it outright Sunday by winning the King Glorious, the final race of the two-week thoroughbred meet. Hernandez finished second in the King Glorious aboard John Metcalfe, Ayuso came in fourth with Pavlovian and Kimura was fifth on Fionello. Favorite Can’t Help Myself and Hector Berrios ran third.

Kimura was king of Los Al in 2025, leading the Orange County track’s June meet and tying for the top at its September meet.

Earlier in the afternoon, Doug O’Neill saddled two winners to take his second consecutive Los Al trainers title with six victories, two more than Bob Baffert, who was idle Sunday.

Smoovin Saturday ($9.20) swooped from near the back of the eight-horse field to a clear-cut win in the $100,000 King Glorious. That gave breeder-owner J. Paul Reddam his fourth victory in the 1-mile race for California-bred 2-year-olds.

The son of 2012 Kentucky Derby winner I’ll Have Another and the Cal-bred stakes-winning mare Smoove It is 2 for 2. He won on debut at Del Mar for trainer Michael McCarthy and was saddled Sunday by Jonathan Thomas while McCarthy serves a 10-day suspension for violating Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority rules governing injections in joints.

Daytime thoroughbred racing in California takes a week off now before Santa Anita opens Friday, Dec. 26, with six grades stakes.

Nineteen nominees for that day’s Malibu Stakes include Baffert-trained Goal Oriented, Barnes, Madaket Road and Getaway Car, Todd Pletcher’s Captain Cook, Richard Baltas’ Modus Bestia and Phil D’Amato’s Speed Wilson.