Back-from-surgery galloper My Brothers Keeper sprang straight back to the winner’s circle first-up to give his trainer Stephen Gray a more than fitting birthday present on Sunday.

Celebrating his 50th birthday, Gray thought his best chance of a present among his five runners, would be Bhaskara in the second race, but after the second-race starter ran second, the Kiwi trainer could still look back fondly on the big party his relatives and friends threw for him to usher in his big 5-0 the night before.

But My Brothers Keeper, a $155 longshot who was making his return from a throat surgery made sure Gray would not go home empty-handed.

Bringing up the rear in the $60,000 Ace Aliado 2009 Stakes, a Class 4 Division 1 race over 1200m, the Handsome Ransom four-year-old seemed a little outpaced early when Fragrance Empire (David Flores), Jet Man (Alan Munro) and favourite Spanish Bay (Saifudin Ismail) hurried along at a fast clip upfront.

Maybe it was the ring-rustiness from the 175 days on the sidelines, but as soon as Brown started to get busy on him, he made a lightning-quick move around the field to be within striking distance at the point of turn.

Favourite backers thought Spanish Bay was home when Saifudin launched him to the top of the pack at the 300m, but they were soon nervously clutching their tickets when My Brothers Keeper leapt into a challenging position 200m from home.

Spanish Bay gave the impression he could go the distance but My Brothers Keeper wore him down to stick his neck out on the line. Fragrance Empire did a good job to hold on for third place another 1 ½ lengths away. The winning time was 1min 10.13secs for the 1200m on the Short Course.

“That will help pay for the party!” said Gray jokingly before turning serious to give due credit to the horse and the right people.

“He’s always been a very good horse, but he recently had wind surgery after his last race, and all credit must go to Dr Dan Shaw who was using a new surgery technique for roarers only for the second time.

“This horse was a roarer but he wasn’t completely over it and we’ve been trying to hold it together for as long as we could.

“He was first-up today and we didn’t expect him to win, but he had come well through his operation and we were hoping he could put in a good run today.”

Brown, who was at his first sit aboard My Brothers Keeper, paid tribute to the team behind the successful comeback of the horse partly-owned by Gray and South African couple, the Bachers.

“Steve’s done a good job with this horse given the wind problem he had. He’s come back 100%,” said the Australian hoop.

“He’s a nice enough sort of horse and he was very genuine in the home straight. Happy Birthday Steve!”

My Brothers Keeper has now scored two wins from nine starts for stakes earnings just a tick under $100,000 for his connections.