Miss Alto Gets Down in the Dirt, Up at the Wire : She Sneaks In at Finish With All Eyes on Top Corsage and My Virginia Reel

While favored Top Corsage and My Virginia Reel were digging in for a long stretch drive that actually started on the far turn, Miss Alto beat them both Monday in the $108,200 San Gorgonio Handicap, rallying from the outside for a 1-length win before 42,114 fans at Santa Anita.

When the serious running started, trainer Jerry Fanning suspected that he had the winner either way. Fanning didn’t think My Virginia Reel was going to get past his Top Corsage and at the eighth pole he felt that Miss Alto, who is Top Corsage’s stablemate, was going to be fastest of all.

Miss Alto, a 6-year-old Mr. Leader-Alto Honor mare, was claimed at Louisiana Downs as a 2-year-old for $25,000 by two Dallas lawyers, Jerry Arnold and Stan Huller. Her $63,200 purse Monday increased Miss Alto’s career total to $241,835.

The San Gorgonio was taken off the grass because Sunday’s heavy rain saturated the turf course. Miss Alto was 6 for 23 on grass and 1 for 10 on dirt before Monday, but Fanning thought she would be able to handle the main track, where she has been training recently.

“We thought about running her on dirt once before,” Fanning said, “but then grass races kept coming up.”

Top Corsage, not coupled with Miss Alto in the betting because of the California rule that allows horses with common trainers but different owners to run separately, held on for second by a half-length over My Virginia Reel. None of the other three starters was ever in the race.

Running 1 1/8 miles on a fast-drying track that was listed as muddy, Miss Alto was timed in 1:49 1/5, and paid $15, $4.60 and $2.80 as the fourth betting choice. Top Corsage, who went off at even money, paid $3.40 and $2.40, and My Virginia Reel, the second choice at 3-1, paid $2.40.

Miss Alto, shuffled back and forth between here and Louisiana Downs, hadn’t won in California since she took a division of the Osunitas Handicap at Del Mar 5 1/2 months ago. Her future is on dirt.

“With a one-run horse, you get more speed to run at when you run on dirt,” Fanning said. “She runs like a little deer, and she runs real hard all the time.”

Eddie Delahoussaye, who also won the last race of the day, rode Miss Alto to second-place finishes in her last two starts. My Virginia Reel beat Miss Alto by 2 1/2 lengths at Santa Anita on Jan. 6.

Delahoussaye had Miss Alto in fourth place going down the backstretch, with Top Corsage, My Virginia Reel and Secuencia ahead of them.

“I got through on the turn and swung out in the stretch and she really accelerated,” Delahoussaye said. “She was more free today and wanted to run.”

The next race for Miss Alto is likely to be on Feb. 21 in the $300,000 Santa Margarita Handicap, which is the same distance as Monday’s stake and also on dirt. Top Corsage is expected to be there, too, giving Fanning another chance to see if his 1-2 punch is as good as it was on Monday.

Horse Racing Notes

Temperate Sil, scratched from the San Fernando on Sunday because of the off track, is entered to run Thursday in a 1 1/8-mile allowance turf race. . . . Alysheba, who also missed the San Fernando, will run in the $500,000 Charles H. Strub Stakes on Feb. 7 without the benefit of a prep. . . . Very Subtle will try to join On the Line as a two-time stakes winner at the meeting when she runs in the $100,000 El Encino for 4-year-old fillies on Saturday. . . . Like Eddie Delahoussaye, apprentice Aaron Gryder also rode back-to-back winners Monday, taking the sixth and seventh races. . . . Chris McCarron and Martin Pedroza were ill and didn’t ride. . . . With Delahoussaye’s two pounds of overweight, Miss Alto carried 116 pounds in the San Gorgonio, three less than the top-weighted Top Corsage. . . . Superb Moment, a $50,000 claimer who loves the mud, ran six furlongs Monday in a quick 1:08 4/5. . . . Cot Campbell, who manages Dogwood Stable, based in Aiken, S.C., is at Santa Anita looking for a trainer to handle a string of horses that he’ll be shipping out here. Last year, Dogwood Stable campaigned Inlander, who won the Eclipse Award as the country’s best steeplechaser.