Belvoir Bay delivers in off-turf Las Cienegas
ARCADIA, Calif. – Prior to Saturday’s Grade 3 Las Cienegas Stakes at Santa Anita, Belvoir Bay had won six stakes on turf and one on a fast dirt track.
Add a win on a wet main track to her list of accomplishments.
Making her first start on an off track, Belvoir Bay cruised to an comfortable win against three rivals in the Las Cienegas Stakes for fillies and mares at 6 1/2 furlongs. The race was scheduled for turf, but was switched to the main track following rain early Saturday morning.
It remains to be seen whether the Las Cienegas Stakes will retain its graded status. The American graded stakes committee reviews races that are transferred to different surfaces, leading to the possibility the Las Cienegas Stakes could be downgraded to listed status.
Regardless, Belvoir Bay was excellent under jockey Flavien Prat. Belvoir Bay broke well and stalked pacesetter Lady Suebee, who set quick fractions of 21.63 seconds for the opening quarter-mile and 43.85 for a half-mile on the wet-fast surface.
Prat moved Belvoir Bay to the outside of Lady Suebee on the turn and took the lead in early stretch. Sent off favored, Belvoir Bay ($4.20) won by 1 1/4 lengths over 3-1 Lady Suebee and was timed in 1:15.06. She earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 84.
“She broke so well I almost went for the lead,” Prat said. “I put her on the outside and she was comfortable. She lugged in a little bit, but I think that it was because she was on her own.”
Prat is the leading rider at this meeting. He is also the leading rider in stakes, having won four such races.
Compelled and Painting Corners completed the order of finish in the small field. Fiery Lady, Last Promise Kept, Miss Southern Miss, Selcourt, and Tesora were withdrawn earlier on Saturday. Selcourt is entered in Sundays $75,000 Kalookan Queen Stakes for fillies and mares at 6 1/2 furlongs.
Belvoir Bay, a 6-year-old mare by Equiano, races for Gary Barber and trainer Peter Miller. Belvoir Bay was sold for $625,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Sale in November, a transaction that dissolved a partnership, Miller said earlier this week.
Belvoir Bay has won 10 of 23 starts and earned $642,167. In her only other appearance in a dirt race, Belvoir Bay won the Grade 3 Torrey Pines Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at a mile at Del Mar in August 2016. She won three consecutive stakes on the hillside turf course last spring, including the Grade 3 San Simeon Stakes against males.
