Diversify better than ever ahead of Jockey Club Gold Cup

ELMONT, N.Y. – When it comes to Diversify, Irad Ortiz Jr. has been aboard for the good times and the bad. Entering Saturday’s Grade 1, $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park, Ortiz believes the 5-year-old gelding has never been better.

“I think so,” Ortiz said Sunday at Belmont. “He’s doing so good, doing things very easy. I worked him the last couple of times, and the last time I don’t move and he went fast.”

Ortiz worked Diversify on Sept. 14 and again last Friday. In the Sept. 14 work, Diversify had several days of light training and then spotted a pair of horses well in front of him and nearly caught them as he went five furlongs in 58.90 seconds. Last Friday, working by himself with less action around him, he still went five furlongs in 58.80 seconds.

“It’s so easy for him; he’s got a huge stride,” Ortiz said. “You can’t even feel he goes that fast.”

Diversify has run fast in his last two starts: a 6 1/2 length victory in the Grade 2 Suburban here on July 7 and a 3 1/2-length victory in the Grade 1 Whitney at Saratoga on Aug. 4. He earned consecutive 110 Beyer Speed Figures.

“He’s just a really, really good horse,” trainer Rick Violette said. “Irad’s gotten more and more confident in him.”

Ortiz has ridden Diversify in 8 of his 15 starts, winning six. The two losses came in the Clark Handicap at Churchill Downs, where Ortiz said Diversify didn’t handle the track, and the Charles Town Classic in April, when Ortiz said the horse wasn’t paying attention and nearly tried to pull himself up.

Speaking of the Clark, Ortiz said: “When I asked him it felt like he was stumbling a little bit. I tried to hold him together to keep him on the bridle. When I asked him he give me some run, but not like he usually does.”

Therein lies the quandary. This year’s Breeders’ Cup is held at Churchill Downs. Diversify’s Whitney victory earned him a fees-paid spot in the Classic. Violette has said that after Saturday he will consider shipping Diversify to Churchill early to get him acclimated to the track.

“I think that might be choice one,” said Violette, who trains Diversify for longtime client Ralph Evans and Evans’s daughter Lauren. “Or, we might stay here an extra week and have one breeze down there.”

Last year, after winning the Jockey Club Gold Cup, Violette opted to keep Diversify out of the Classic because he felt the main contenders, Gun Runner and Arrogate, had the same style as Diversify.

“I didn’t think there was a chance for us to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic,” Violette said. “It was coming up speed on speed on speed. I didn’t want to go there.”

For now, Diversify is setting his sights on trying to become the 12th horse to win at least two consecutive runnings of the Jockey Club – Kelso won five straight – when it is run for the 100th time on Saturday. He would join a list that includes Nashua, Shuvee, Slew o’ Gold, Skip Away, and Curlin.

Those expected to take on Diversify in the Gold Cup are Carlino, Discreet Lover, Gronkowski, Mendelssohn, Patch, Thunder Snow, and Uno Mas Modelo.