Streaking 3-year-old faces older

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - After the Knight will try to win her fourth straight race when she tackles older horses for the first time at Hastings on Saturday. Avalanche Bay looks like the main threat in the 1 1/16-mile allowance race for fillies and mares that haven't won a stakes race in 2005.

Trained by Lance Giesbrecht, After the Knight certainly held her own while facing the top 3-year-old fillies at Hastings all year. She was stakes placed four times, but was just a cut below the leaders in her division and didn't win until she dropped into an optional $50,000 race Sept. 17. She won her next two, and her latest win was over Montero in a race similar to Saturday's but restricted to 3-year-old fillies.

After the Knight will be ridden by Justin Stein.

Avalanche Bay won a race just like this last year, and she's coming off of sharp win in an optional $50,000 sprint Oct. 16. Like After the Knight, Avalanche Bay can't quite keep up with the best in her division, but she hits pretty hard when she faces allowance horses or high-priced claimers.

The only concern regarding Avalanche Bay is that she had been off for 2 1/2 months before her last-out win, and it's hard to say if she'll be ready to stretch out with just one sprint following a lengthy layoff. Still, Avalanche Bay is trained by leading trainer Gary Demorest, and over the past two years he's won with 33 percent of the horses he's stretched out from a sprint to a route.