Brown looks for unprecedented 11th score in Saturday’s G1 Dunkin’ Diana
At 0h02, on July 15, 2026 • By Keith McCalmont, Saratoga Race Course
Five-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer Chad Brown will have four chances in Portfolio Duration, Dynamic Pricing, Kathynmarissa and Segesta to notch a record-extending 11th win in Saturday’s Grade 1, $500,000 Dunkin’ Diana, a nine-furlong inner turf test for older fillies and mares, at Saratoga Race Course.
Brown’s previous Diana victories came with Zagora [2011], Dacita [2016], Lady Eli [2017], Sistercharlie [2018-19], Rushing Fall [2020], In Italian [2022], Whitebeam [2023-24] and Excellent Truth [2025].
Of that august group, Lady Eli, Sistercharlie [2018] and Rushing Fall went on to take Eclipse Award honors as Champion Turf Female the year of their Diana score. Zagora would finish third in the 2012 Diana in her attempted title defense but completed that campaign with a win in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf to secure honors as Champion Grass Mare.
“The Diana is one of the most prestigious, most important Grade 1 races in this division for older female turf horses in the country – if not, the most important race,” Brown said. “It’s at that middle distance of a mile and an eighth where you’ll have milers move up and mile and a quarter horses cut back. It’s a really fair distance to put the best horses out there to run against each other.”
Brown’s eight individual Diana-winners have combined for a perfect in-the-money record of 23-15-5-3 over the Saratoga turf.
“It’s a race I’ve long targeted with my best group of turf fillies each year,” Brown said. “You develop a feel over time of which horses will like the course and the distance and the timing and then you work backward from this race and really play for it. Plenty of times we’ve been lucky enough to hit the mark with the ones that could step up and do it.”
Brown, an eight-time leading trainer at Saratoga, regards each Diana win as special and struggled to pick a favorite.
“Zagora was the first one…Lady Eli coming back from laminitis was special,” Brown said. “A horse like Sistercharlie, she ran in the race three times and won it twice and once as part of a Championship season, is remarkable.”
Klaravich Stables’ lightly-raced Portfolio Duration [post 4, Manny Franco, 124 pounds] could be the best of Brown’s four chances for an 11th Diana win and fifth consecutive.
