Fifty years after Onion beat Secretariat in the same race, the Whitney Stakes produced another stunning outcome Saturday.
White Abarrio, scratched three times since last winning, broke sharply and finished stronger in the $1 million Grade 1 race at Saratoga. Zandon, Blue Grass winner and Kentucky Derby show horse last year, ran second while champion Cody's Wish, the reigning Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile champion for Bill Mott, ran third at 2-5 odds. A two-time Grade 1 winner in his 5-year-old season, Cody's Wish topped the recent NTRA Top Thoroughbred poll.
Irad Ortiz Jr. rode White Abarrio for trainer Rick Dutrow Jr., who in January had a 10-year New York State Gaming Commission suspension lifted. His best horses include 2005 Horse of the Year Saint Liam and 2008 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown.
White Abarrio ran nine furlongs in 1:48.45 and paid $22.40 to win. A March winner at Gulfstream Park, he placed third to Cody's Wish and Zandon in Belmont Park's Grade 1 Metropolitan June 10. The top three in the Whitney carried 124 pounds.
Two-time Oaklawn winner Cogburn scored the first graded victory of his career in the Grade 3 $300,000 Troy Stakes on the Whitney undercard.
Steve Asmussen trains the 4-year-old Not This Time colt for longtime clients Bill and Corinne Heiligbrodt of Houston and attorney Clark Brewster of Tulsa. Cogburn bumped odds-on favorite Caravel and another horse at the start of the 5 1/2-furlong turf race, Ricardo Santana Jr. getting the winner up late by three quarters of a length in 1:03.70 over soft going.
Carrying 122 pounds, Cogburn paid $17 to win with Nobals second and Thin White Duke third in the seven-horse field.
Caravel, 15-time winner of almost $2 million and trained by Brad Cox, placed fourth off a Grade 3 victory in the Jaipur Stakes June 10 on the Belmont Stakes undercard.
Cogburn came off back-to-back listed stakes victories at Lone Star Park, where Hall of Famer Asmussen topped the trainer standings. Second in last year's Bachelor Stakes at Oaklawn, the colt scored local victories each of the last two seasons.
Multiple Grade 1 winner Pretty Mischievous ($5.70) stayed on track for championship honors among 3-year-old fillies with a third consecutive Grade 1 victory in the $500,000 Test. Trained by Brendan Walsh, Tyler Gaffalione rode the Godolphin homebred by Into Mischief. Now 7 for 9 lifetime, she notched previous G1 wins in the Kentucky Oaks and Belmont's Acorn Stakes.