Technical Analysis shows her class in front-running De La Rose score

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Take the class of the field coming off a much needed race returning to her favorite course and it all added up to a relatively easy and impressive 3 1/2-length victory for the 4-5 favorite Technical Analysis in Wednesday’s $135,000 De La Rose Stakes at Saratoga.

Technical Analysis is a multiple graded stakes winner who finished second in the Grade 1 Diana here last summer. She entered the De La Rose off a game second-place finish in the Perfect Sting Stakes while returning from a near nine-month layoff and was back at Saratoga where she had won three times in four starts, her lone setback a runner-up finish behind stablemate In Italian in the 2022 Diana.

Technical Analysis broke well and wasted little time taking control of the one-mile De La Rose under jockey Jose Ortiz. Technical Analysis set a reasonable pace over the firm course, getting her opening half-mile in 48.49 seconds while stalked by Regal Realm from the outset.

Regal Realm, who came into the race sporting a three-race winning streak, got on near even terms with the leader entering the stretch but the favorite was more than equal to the challenge, readily spurting away when roused by Ortiz three-sixteenths from the wire, the pair steadily increasing their advantage to the end.

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White Frost, Grade 1-placed earlier this year, slipped up the rail to be second best while never menacing the winner. Regal Realm held on by a nose over Naughty to finish third.

Evvie Jets, who led at every call to upset Technical Analysis in the Perfect Sting, raced from just off the early pace, swung wide with a mild bid approaching the stretch, but flattened out down the lane to finish sixth in the field of seven older fillies and mares.

Technical Analysis, a 5-year-old Kingman mare owned by Klaravich Stable Inc., completed the distance in 1:33.98 and paid $3.80.

“I was surprised she was on the lead,” Brown admitted after the race. “I thought there would be a little bit of a duel, but our plan was to go right to the front, she’s happiest there.

“And she loves Saratoga. She’s got four wins in five starts here and a second in the Diana. She’s like my little Fourstardave. Every year she just thrives up here.”

Brown said despite the fact Technical Analysis got beat as an odds-on choice in her 2023 debut, the race set her up nicely for the De La Rose.

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“It didn’t work out at Belmont really, the trip, where she was positioned, and like Jose [Ortiz] just said to me, she likes it better around two turns where at Belmont going a mile is a one-turn race basically,” said Brown. “I think he was right about that.”

Brown said that while the Grade 2 Ballston Spa comes up a bit quick on Aug. 24, as fond as Technical Analysis is of Saratoga, if he was ever going to bring her back in a rush somewhere, it would be here.

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