Lady Eli shows class in G1 Diana

Lady Eli had her trainer looking for superlatives after her second consecutive Grade 1 victory and fourth overall.

On the track that she debuted victorious as a 2-year-old in 2014, Lady Eli overcame her own early exuberance to win the $500,000 Diana Saturday by a head at historic Saratoga Race Course in upstate New York. Despite breaking through the gate and being carried wide, Lady Eli outkicked Quidura and stablemate Antonoe in the stretch for her ninth win in 12 career starts.

With Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard, Lady Eli carried 123 pounds to victory in her first race since the Grade 1 Gamely at California's Santa Anita Park. Paying $3.90 to win, the Kentucky-bred daughter of Divine Park-Sacre Couer clocked a mile and an eighth in 1:46.17 on a firm-rated turf course.

"Today was one of her greatest races to date. Maybe her best," said Eclipse Award-winning trainer Chad Brown, a native of nearby Mechanicville, N.Y. "Giving eight pounds to the horse she ran down late in the stretch after breaking through the gate, going a little wide -- she just overcame everything. Today she proved she's one of the all-time greats."

A career earner of $2,719,800, Lady Eli is a multiple Grade 1 winner before and after a bout with laminitis that knocked her out of action for 13 months. She won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf in 2014 and finished second in the 2016 BC Filly and Mare Turf, both at Santa Anita. She is nine for 12 with three graded seconds, winning at Saratoga after having her 6-for-6 record spoiled there with a second in the Grade 2 Ballston Spa last year, her comeback race.

"It was her determination," Brown said. "I'm proud she didn't hang there in the end. She's always drove past another horse as long as she can see them. She might have been undefeated; three times she's gotten beat late in the stretch from behind."

Sports on 07/23/2017

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