Royal Albert Hall ends drought in Bernardini Stakes

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – By the time trainer Rob Atras had run Royal Albert Hall in a $40,000 claiming race going a mile on Feb. 21, he had already nominated him for the $100,000 Bernardini Stakes going 1 5/16 miles nine days later.

Royal Albert Hall ran a respectable second in that $40,000 claiming race. That performance and the 7-year-old gelding’s subsequent training gave Atras confidence to give him a shot in the Bernardini.

Given how all Atras’s horses have been running the last two months, it’d be hard for him not to be confident. Royal Albert Hall continued Atras’s magnificent start to his New York training career by rallying from well off the pace to run down Hit It Once More and win the Bernardini by 1 3/4 lengths. Hit It Once More held second by a neck over Shalako. It was two lengths back to Forwarned, who was followed by Holiday Bonus, Leitone, and Weather Wiz, the 4-5 favorite.

The win was just the third in 41 career starts for Royal Albert Hall, a Great Britain-bred gelding who began his career in Europe and had gone winless in 12 previous stakes tries in the U.S, most for Doug O’Neill. He hadn’t won since taking a 1 1/4-mile turf allowance race on March 25, 2016, 24 starts ago.

Atras, a former assistant to Robertino Diodoro, improved his Aqueduct winter meet statistics to 10 wins, 6 seconds from 19 starters. While this is his first stakes win on the New York Racing Association circuit, he had won five stakes in his previous incarnation as a trainer in Canada and the western U.S.

“Unbelievable feeling, I’m very fortunate to get good horses, great staff,” Atras said. “This is a team win for everybody.”

Jockey Junior Alvarado certainly did his part. Alvarado was breathing heavy after guiding Royal Albert Hall from near the back of the pack to victory over a track that was deep and tiring all day long.

“I’m exhausted, I’m not going to deny this,” Alvarado, who won three races Saturday, said. “It’s very heavy, tiring today for every kind of horse. It doesn’t matter how good your horse can be, you can feel the whole way they are struggling, struggling, struggling.”

Alvarado had Royal Albert Hall saving ground early, but believing the inside was the deepest part of the track, Alvarado guided him a few paths off the rail down the backside.

Still sixth behind Hit It Once More, who ran a mile in 1:43.40, Royal Albert Hall split horses approaching the top of the lane, tipped four wide in upper stretch, and ran by Hit It Once More inside the sixteenth pole.

Royal Albert Hall, by Royal Applause, covered the 1 5/16 miles in 2:18.99 and returned $8.80 as the second choice.

“I knew the inside has been more deep than the outside, but in such a long race I didn’t want to go wide the whole way around,” Alvarado said. “By the three-eighths pole, I had to weave my way through … As soon as we turned for home, he got in the clear and he carried me all the way to the wire.”

Atras said the mornings he trained Royal Albert Hall following his second-place finish on Feb. 21 gave him confidence to try him in this marathon stakes which had its inaugural running.

“I thought he could possibly handle it by the way he was training in the mornings,” Atras said. “Really, the further he trained the stronger he got. Everything he did kind of said you’d want to go further.”