Rock Me Baby goes last to 1st

A horse returning from a layoff won the $61,065 Albany Stakes on Saturday at Golden Gate Fields, but it wasn’t Alert Bay with his five-stakes-race winning streak, or Shudacudawudya after 2½ years away from competition.

Rock Me Baby, a Southern California-based 6-year-old gelding who hadn’t raced since a fourth-place finish in the Grade 2 City of Hope Mile on Oct. 4 at Santa Anita, stormed from last place and won the Albany Stakes by a length.

Shudacudawudya was scratched after refusing to enter the starting gate.

The 5-furlong distance was too short for Alert Bay, whose winning streak from September through January came in races from 1 mile to 13⁄ miles, and he did well to finish fourth Saturday — 1¼ lengths behind Rock Me Baby.

It figured to be too short, too, for Rock Me Baby, whose best performances have come going 1 mile or 11⁄ miles.

“I was afraid it would be a little short, but I was hoping that class would tell a lot in the final 16th,” trainer Craig Dollase said. “There was nothing for us at home, this was on turf and we needed to get a race under his belt. I call it worth three workouts.”

Streamside, who had won six of his past eight starts, broke first in the field of seven (Marino’s Wild Cat was an early scratch) but Serbian Syclone soon took command and carried a 3-length lead on the turn.

Serbian Syclone held a clear advantage for most of the stretch before being passed by Streamside, and neither could withstand Rock Me Baby’s charge, which came from 8 lengths behind leaving the turn.

“This horse has a lot of talent,” winning jockey Corey Nakatani said. “They were cooking right along down the backside, so I wasn’t too worried about it. He’s a route horse, and I didn’t want to get his momentum stopped once I got him started.” Chrome’s sister 2nd: Hope’s Love, a 2-yearold full sister to California Chrome, finished second in her debut in the fourth race, rallying from 8 lengths behind to fall a long neck short of Our princess melanie. Like California Chrome, Hope’s Love is owned by breeders Steve Coburn and Perry Martin. She is trained by Steve Sherman, the son of California Chrome trainer Art Sherman.