Power Alert takes aim at three-peat in Silks Run

Having already extended one streak by winning at Gulfstream Park for the third straight winter, Grade 3 winner Power Alert takes aim at another three-peat in Saturday’s $75,000 Silks Run.

 

The Australian-bred gelding, now 7, has won the five-furlong dash for older turf sprinters in each of the two years it has been run, both by less than a length, going 55.80 seconds in 2015 and 54.83 last year. 

 

His most recent victory by a desperate nose in the Gulfstream Park Turf Sprint Jan. 28 kept his record perfect at the South Florida track with five straight victories dating back to his North American debut victory Dec. 21, 2014 in a five-furlong allowance.

 

“He seems to like the strip and he seems to get good this time of year. He particularly likes the five-eighths of a mile distance,” trainer and co-owner Brian Lynch said. “I don’t know whether it’s the configuration of the track or what, but he just handles it so well. His form speaks for itself, I guess.”

 

After racing 13 times in his native Australia, where he was raised in the same small town as Lynch, Power Alert has won seven of 17 starts in the U.S. and is 8-for-16 lifetime at five furlongs with four seconds and a third. His biggest win came in the 2015 Twin Spires Turf Sprint (G3).

 

Power Alert capped his 6-year-old season winning the Turf Dash Dec. 31 at Tampa Bay Downs and opened 2016 by rallying three wide off blazing fractions of 20.84 seconds and 43.08 to emerge first from a blanket finish in the GP Turf Sprint. Three of his rivals that day – Super Spender, Pay Any Price and Grade 1 winner Mongolian Saturday – will try him again in the Silks Run.

 

“He got there in the nick of time,” Lynch said. “There were some seriously fast fractions that they went that day. Thank God he was able to hang on and be able to finish up like that with all the late runners coming and you’ve got a bulls-eye on your back.”

 

Power Alert has had three half-mile works at Palm Meadows, Gulfstream’s satellite training facility in Palm Beach County, since his last start. Championship Meet-leading rider Luis Saez will be aboard from Post 2 of 11 at 120 pounds.

 

“Anytime you’re around these older horses, you work out what it takes to keep them happy and how to go into these races feeling like you’ve given them the best chance you can,” Lynch said. “He seems to be very sharp right now and very happy in his training so hopefully he brings one of his ‘A’ game performances and if everything goes his way, it’d be lovely to keep him undefeated at Gulfstream.

 

“It would be a great accomplishment,” he added. “He’s such a cool horse to have in the barn. He’s really unassuming. You wouldn’t even know he’s there. He’s really a barn favorite.”

 

Averill Racing’s Pay Any Price made his stakes debut in the GP Turf Sprint, in which he finished fourth by a length after doing all the work up front on a wicked pace. Super Spender has run fifth to Power Alert in each of the past two races, beaten just 1 ½ lengths in the GP Turf Sprint. The Jane Cibelli trainee has four wins from seven career starts at Gulfstream, including the Claiming Crown Canterbury Dec. 3.

 

Mongolian Stable’s Mongolian Saturday, 10th in the GP Turf Sprint, has one win from seven starts since his 15-1 upset of the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint (G1) – that coming in the Woodford (G3) last October at Keeneland. He will carry jockey Carlos Montalvo and topweight of 122 pounds from Post 7.

 

Rounding out the field are stakes winners Conquest Tsunami and Gorgeous Bird; Canadian Flyer and Chia Ghost, both coming off five-furlong turf sprint wins at Gulfstream; multiple stakes-placed Extravagant Kid; Beantown Saint and Moonwalker.

 

 

Silverton Hill’s multiple-stakes winner Ruby Notion, beaten as the favorite in a Suffolk Downs stakes last July, is entered to launch her comeback in the $75,000 Captiva Island for older female turf sprinters.

 

Ruby Notion, a 4-year-old Great Notion filly bred in West Virginia and trained by Wesley Ward, has not raced since finishing fourth by 2 ½ lengths following a slow start in the Jill Jellison Memorial Dash, her lone start of 2016. She shows five works at Palm Meadows for her return, most recently going five furlongs in a bullet 59 seconds over the main track March 3.

 

“She’s been doing great. Her last work was her best of the whole winter,” Ward said. “Ironically it was on dirt; she’d been working on the grass. It kind of opens up another avenue for us. This race is here so we’re going to go on the grass and if it comes off, we’ll be there, too.”

 

Following a debut victory in May 2015, Ruby Notion was fifth in the Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot in England. Upon her return, she reeled off wins in the five-furlong Colleen on the Monmouth turf and 5 ½-furlong Selima, rained off the grass to Laurel Park’s main track. She capped her 2-year-old season setting the pace before tiring to finish off the board in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1).

 

“She just had a couple of minor issues that gave us a little setback. It was nothing major at all but the owner gave her quite a bit of time at his farm,” Ward said. “We’ve been searching for an allowance race. We wanted to jump in against a little softer company but her last workout opened our eyes up, so we’re going to go for it. She’s very fast.”

 

Stoneway Farm’s Pretty Perfection enters the Captiva Island having already posted two upset victories at the Championship Meet this winter, taking an optional claiming allowance by a neck before a 1 ½-length triumph in the Ladies’ Turf Sprint Jan. 28, sent off at 13-1 in both five-furlong sprints.

 

Eddie Broome-owned and trained Brandy’s Girl is another multiple stakes winner, having won the 2015 Juvenile Fillies Sprint at Gulfstream Park West and the Crank It Up last June at Monmouth. She was beaten a neck by Pretty Perfection in her last start Jan. 4.