Diversify

Diversify opened his career with four straight wins, taking the first three by a combined margin of 22 3/4 lengths. AFter finishing seventh in his stakes debut, Diversify went back to allowance competition and ran second before a runner-up finish by a nose in the Commentator Stakes. The Bellamy Road gelding then earned his first career stakes win with a 2 3/4-length score in the Saginaw Stakes for New York-breds in July 2017.

Diversify followed with another stakes win, taking the Evan Shipman Stakes for New York-breds at Saratoga, before making his graded stakes debut in the Grade 1, $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup. Diversify set the tempo in the Jockey Club Gold Cup and battled fiercely in the stretch to hold off the late rush of Grade 1 winner Keen Ice for the victory.

After bypassing the Breeders' Cup Classic, Diversify closed his 2017 season with a fourth-place finish in the Grade 1 Clark Handicap in November at Churchill Downs.

Diversify made his 5-year-old bow in the Grade 2 Charles Town Classic Stakes but faded badly and finished seventh. He rebounded when he returned to New York for his next start, winning by a hard-fought nose in the Commentator Stakes on May 28 at Belmont Park. He continued to show his affinity for Belmont and returned to elite form in his next start when he led from start to finish in a dominant runaway victory in the Grade 2 Suburban Stakes on July 7. 

Pointed to the Grade 1 Whitney Stakes in August at Saratoga Race Course, Diversify was pegged as the morning-line favorite for the race. The start time was delayed by lightning sparked by a thunderstorm that turned the racetrack sloppy, but Diversify surged out of the starting gate and seized a clear lead while setting testing early fractions. Mind Your Biscuits rallied into contention near the top of the stretch, but Diversify put him away en route to a runaway victory and his second Grade 1 triumph.