Diversify impresses in workout for Jockey Club Gold Cup

ELMONT, N.Y. – One week after working a fast five furlongs in 58.90 seconds, Diversify came back with a nearly identical five-furlong drill in 58.80 seconds Friday morning over the main track at Belmont Park as he aims for a repeat victory in next Saturday’s Grade 1, $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup.

With jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. in the irons for the second straight week, Diversify went in splits of 11.62, 23.03, and 34.31 before coming home in 24.49. He galloped out six furlongs in 1:12.20 and seven-eighths in 1:26.30.

Melissa Cohen, the assistant to trainer Rick Violette, oversaw the work from the grandstand and was shocked at what she was looking at on her stopwatch vis-à-vis how easily Diversify appeared to be going.

“Usually, I’m on the pony, I don’t get to see it,” Cohen said. “I’m looking at my clock, looking at him, and saying, ‘Is this really happening?’ ”

Cohen said she was communicating with Ortiz via two-way radio, telling him “easy, easy, easy,” but Ortiz wasn’t doing much on Diversify.

“He was just sitting,” said Cohen. “He would have had to stand up on him to go any slower.”

Cohen added that Diversify “is telling us he’s good to go.”

“He’s barely taking a deep breath,” she said.

Diversify is coming off back-to-back superlative victories in the Grade 2 Suburban at Belmont and the Grade 1 Whitney at Saratoga.

Entries for the Jockey Club Gold Cup, which offers a fees-paid berth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic via the Win and You’re In program, will be made on Wednesday. Expected to enter are Carlino, Discreet Lover, Diversify, Gronkowski, Mendelssohn, Patch, Thunder Snow, and Uno Mas Modelo. You’re to Blame is possible.