Fairplex Opens Today With Two Stakes

Fairplex Park, which last year set a record for the largest total mutuel handle in its 58-year racing history with more than $100 million, begins its season today with two thoroughbred stakes races highlighting a 13-race program.

The meet runs 18 consecutive days through Sept. 28, concurrent with the Los Angeles County Fair.

Bob Baffert, who saddled Silver Charm to win the Kentucky Derby in May, and the runaway winner of the Del Mar training title, will send out Mike Pegram’s The Texas Tunnel in the $50,000-guaranteed Foothill Stakes.

The Texas Tunnel showed an affinity for the five-eighth-mile Pomona course last year when he won the Beau Brummel Stakes as a 2-year-old.

Also in the 6 1/2-furlong Foothill is the Mel Stute-trained Golden Bronze. Stute is the track’s all-time leader with 135 winners.

A field of seven 2-year-old fillies contests the $50,000-guaranteed Bustles and Bows Stakes. Excess Loot looms as the favorite in the 6 1/2-furlong race.