Fashion Alert dominates Astoria Stakes in debut

ELMONT, N.Y. – No experience necessary.

Fashion Alert, making her career debut in a stakes race, proved that seasoning wasn’t a requirement for success as she ran a very professional race and dominated Saturday’s $100,000 Astoria Stakes for juvenile fillies by 4 3/4 lengths.

Liatris, a debut winner against males at Pimlico and the 8-5 Astoria favorite, rallied to be second, 2 1/2 lengths ahead of Lindy.

Dads Little Girls, Julie’s Indy, and Awesomendensome completed the order of finish.

The Astoria was being run for the 103rd time but the first time since 2008. Todd Pletcher, the trainer of Fashion Alert, won it for the fourth time, having taken it previously with Jersey Girl (1997), Adieu (2005), and Glacken’s Gal (2007).
All three of those fillies were coming off maiden wins. Fashion Alert was entered in a maiden race for earlier in the week that failed to fill, so Pletcher opted to run her in the Astoria.

Breaking from the outside post in the six-horse field, Fashion Alert bore in a little at the start but was quickly straightened out by John Velazquez. Fashion Alert, racing three wide outside of Lindy and Awesomendensome, made the lead after running a quarter-mile in 22.37 seconds. She lengthened her advantage on her own power and built a four-length lead with a furlong remaining. She needed two cracks of Velazquez’s left-handed whip to complete the task.

“She broke to the inside. After three jumps, she got into a nice rhythm and sat in the middle of the track,” Velazquez said. “Todd had pointed it out that [Lindy] had an extension blinker, so I wanted to make sure I kept everybody [inside]. That was pretty easy.”

Fashion Alert, a daughter of Old Fashioned owned by George Bolton and Barry Hall, covered 5 1/2 furlongs in 1:04.01 and returned $5.70 as the second choice.

“I thought she did everything we hoped she would do,” Pletcher said. “She got away pretty alertly and put herself in a good position. It was an advantage to have an outside post, which we were happy about when the draw came out. She’s a very talented filly that ran to her training.”

Pletcher said he would look to run Fashion Alert next in the Grade 2, $150,000 Schuylerville Stakes on opening day at Saratoga.