Saratoga 2023: Whitebeam upsets In Italian in Diana Stakes

Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

The Grade 1, $500,000 Diana Stakes was run on a beautiful, green turf course on the first Saturday of the Saratoga meeting. However, the results of the race were Brown. Chad Brown that is, as the trainer won the prestigious stakes for older fillies and mares for the eighth time with surprising Whitebeam.

Whitebeam was one of the four horses in the race for Brown and actually had the longest odds of the group at 7-1 in what was a five-horse field. Making just her third start since moving to Brown’s barn from Europe, the daughter of Caravaggio won the first Grade 1 of her career. She had to upset her stablemate In Italian, who was the 1-5 favorite and the leader of the filly-and-mare turf division.

Click here for Saratoga entries and results.

Jockey Flavien Prat asked Whitebeam to challenge In Italian on the outside, the two horses battled down the stretch, and the winner prevailed by a nose in the final stride, getting the 1 1/8 miles in 1:48.33.

“It was really tight there and In Italian ran her heart out,” Brown said. “I think the turf is pretty soft, and she was going pretty quick. Flavien rode a good stalking race, and the no. 1 horse (Fev Rover) really wanted to be up in there. As Flavien told me, he really had to go early and keep pressure, too, because Javier (Castellano on Fev Rover) looked like he wanted to be where Whitebeam was, so you know, they ran around in a pack.”

The turf course was labelled firm, but heavy rain at the track Thursday evening left plenty of moisture in the grass. In her career, In Italian raced on firm turf in 10 of 11 starts and showed a preference for dry conditions.

“In Italian ran her heart out with pretty fast fractions on this soft a turf course,” Brown said. “But Whitebeam, you know, she also ran just a little bit better today and was able to handle the soft ground and showed a lot of heart late.”

Although Whitebeam’s victory was an upset to the betting public, Brown was not entirely surprised she won the Diana.

“She trained as good as my top handful of horses all winter at Payson Park,” Brown said. “I'm just so fortunate that Juddmonte sent me this horse in excellent shape. The horse was the sound. I could see after the first work that she had Grade 1 potential.”

In the end the Brown duo completed a $2 exacta that paid $32.80, and Whitebeam returned $17.60 for a win bet defeating In Italian.

Mark Casse-trained Fev Rover (9-1), the only starter who was not handled by Brown, finished third followed by Marketsegmentation (6-1) and Fluffy Socks (7-1) in that order.

“You hate to see a horse that's on such a winning streak and the leader of the division get it snapped whether it's your horse or not, and she ran really too good to lose,” Brown said. “Certainly at Saratoga anything can happen as we know, and there's nothing else that she could have done.

“But it's horse racing, and you know you're not always going to get a walk around pace either. You're not supposed to. That's turf racing as well. The conditions change and, as I said in a couple interviews earlier this week, is she beatable? Maybe if there's moisture in the ground, that's the one thing that I'm not positive about that she can be effective on.”

At the end of the day Brown added to his domination of the Diana with victories in the last seven of the last eight years as part of his total of eight. Since 2011, Brown’s Diana winners included Lady Eli, Rushing Fall, Sistercharlie and In Italian.

“The Diana is a very, very big part of our annual schedule,” Brown said. “We circle this race early on, and through the years I've had so many nice fillies sent to me and my team from all over, and really my team deserves all the credit for developing these horses. You're talking about eight running to this race we've won with all different kinds of horses. You have to have a lot of talent and have them ready.”