Rejuvenated Alert Bay finds conditions of Lure just right

ARCADIA, Calif. – At the age of 7, Alert Bay is in the midst of a career revival.

After missing a year because of a soft-tissue injury, according to trainer Blaine Wright, Alert Bay has had two outstanding starts in recent months, a second to Barkley in the Grade 3 Longacres Mile on dirt at Emerald Downs in August and a win in the Rolling Green Stakes on turf at Golden Gate Fields on Labor Day.

On Friday, Alert Bay starts in the $70,000 Lure Stakes at a mile on turf at Santa Anita. He will try to win for the 16th time in his 36th start.

“It’s nice to have him back,” Wright said on Wednesday from his stable at Golden Gate Fields. “He’s come back to run two huge races off the layoff.

“The race in Seattle, we got beat by a nice horse. The dirt is not his specialty. It was nice to see him put that race together off a layoff. We ran him back in three weeks, and he’s so much better on the grass.”

The Lure Stakes is restricted to horses who have not won a stakes worth $55,000 or more to the winner at a mile or longer this year. Statebred races are excluded from that clause. Alert Bay earned $39,450 in the Rolling Green.

The Lure is the seventh race on a 10-race program that begins at noon Pacific and includes the $200,000 Golden State Juvenile Fillies as the eighth race.

Wright said Alert Bay was out of training for about eight months before he resumed exercise, initially walking in water before returning to racetrack activity.

“He had a good foundation when he came back,” Wright said. “His injury wasn’t that severe. You always wonder if they will make it back.”

The Lure drew a field of nine, including the stakes winner He Will and the graded stakesplaced runners Chicago Style and Kenjisstorm.

He Will won the 2017 Lure Stakes when the race was run at Del Mar. Trained by Jerry Hollendorfer, He Will is winless in three starts this year. A 6-year-old horse, He Will was eighth in the Grade 3 Eddie D Stakes on the hillside turf course Sept. 28 in his first start since January.

Chicago Style, trained by Tom Proctor, has not raced since finishing third in the Grade 3 John Connally Turf Cup at Sam Houston Race Park in January. Last November, Chicago Style was second as the 7-5 favorite in the Grade 2 Hollywood Turf Cup at 1 1/2

miles at Del Mar.

With Drayden Van Dyke riding at Churchill Downs on Friday, Keiber Coa has the mount on Chicago Style. Coa has been riding at Delaware Park, where he has had success with Proctor.

Kenjisstorm was second in the Grade 2 Charles Whittingham Stakes at 1 1/4 miles on turf in May and fifth in the Eddie D Stakes.

Hunt targets Seabiscuit

Hunt, who was withdrawn from Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Mile at Churchill Downs this week because of illness, will be pointed for the Grade 2 Seabiscuit Handicap at Del Mar on Nov. 24, a race he won last year.

“He was off his feed about a week before we were going to send him,” trainer Phil D’Amato said. “We treated him, and he was good.

“We took a final blood before he was going to go on the plane. It wasn’t what we wanted. To err on the side of caution, we decided it was best to skip the plane ride and go for the Seabiscuit.”

Owned by Michael House, Hunt, 6, has won 9 of 29 starts and earned $909,454.

Big carryover in Rainbow 6

Friday’s 10-race program at Santa Anita begins with a carryover of $992,979 in the 20-cent Rainbow 6, with interest expected to heighten dramatically for Sunday’s closing day of the meeting, which has a mandatory payout.

The carryover portion is paid only if there is one winning ticket, which has yet to occur through last Sunday, the 19th day of the 22-day meeting. Sunday’s Rainbow pick six paid $31,431. There were six winning tickets from a pool of $353,039.

There is no consolation for the Rainbow 6 to ticket holders with five winners, with 70 percent of the net pool devoted to ticket holders with six winners and 30 percent carried over if there is more than one ticket with six winners. Those terms have left some players waiting for Sunday, when the entire pool will be distributed to tickets with six winners.

A seven-figure carryover into Sunday could produce a pool of new money in excess of $6 million, track officials said.