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Alert Bay keeps win streak alive in Mathis Brothers Mile upset

After registering a field-best 107 BRIS Speed rating in his previous start, Alert Bay switched to turf and proved extremely game (Benoit Photo) Alert Bay ran his stakes winning streak to four with an upset victory in Friday's Grade 2, $201,250 Mathis Brothers Mile on opening day of Santa Anita's 2014-15 meet. Tracking within a couple of lengths of Red Outlaw, who set a pressured pace of :23 1/5, :46 3/5 and 1:11, Alert Bay bid for the lead inside the final furlong, passed 2-1 favorite Heart to Heart late, and then withstood a late charge from Home Run Kitten to win by a neck in a time of 1:35 over the firm turf. He paid $20.40. Home Run Kitten was a length ahead of Awesome Return at the wire. The latter was followed by Heart to Heart, Talco, Red Outlaw, Long On Value, Patriots Rule, Sawyer's Hill, and Louisiana Flyboy. Ashleyluvssugar, Cool Samurai, Play Hard to Get, and Tonito M. were scratched. Alert Bay, owned by Peter Redekop, and trained by Blaine Wright, preceded this win with a pair of Grade 3 scores in Vancouver -- the British Columbia Derby and BC Premier's Handicap at Hastings -- and in the $215,000 Zia Park Derby in New Mexico. All three of those races were on dirt, as was an earlier stakes score in the $200,000 Echo Eddie at Santa Anita on April 5.

Alert Bay placed twice in a pair of grass stakes for California-breds earlier this year, finishing third in the Snow Chief at Santa Anita and second in the Silky Sullivan at Golden Gate Fields. The consistent three-year-old now possesses a mark of 13-7-4-1, $617,207.

"He's done so well for us. Merry Christmas to us, what a great present," Wright said. "The horse runs on any surface. He went back to Canada because his owner lives there and races there and I was fortunate enough that he sent the horse back to me at Golden Gate Fields.

"We found out that he's a good shipper. We're based at Golden Gate so when there's a good race, we've got to go. We've tried to space his races out a month or more and he puts up with the training and shipping.

"If this horse is doing well I would love to come back for the Frank E. Kilroe Mile (in March)."

Bred by Thomas Newton Bell and Ross John McLeod, Alert Bay is a gelded son of City Zip and the Dushyantor mare Hickory, who was a multiple stakes winner and Group 1-placed in Chile. Also from this family are Chilean champion Divina Preciosa and Chilean Group 1 winner Comparito.

Alert Bay counts as his third dam Mairzy Doates, a Grade 2 winner in the U.S. who captured the inaugural Japan Cup in 1981.

Alert Bay was sold for $65,000 as a weanling at the Keeneland January sale.

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