Weekend turf warrior for 7/25/15

It was opening day at Saratoga yesterday and the Gr 2 Lake George (1&1/16th) for 3f was the turf feature, won by Mrs McDougal for Chad Brown (Irad Ortiz up). the only turf graded stakes today is the Diana Stakes. Named for the mythological goddess Diana (why??) and inaugurated in 1939, it is open to F&M willing to race the one and one-eighth miles on the turf. The race is a Grade I with a current purse of $500,000. The Diana is part of the Breeders' Cup Challenge series that gives the winner of the Diana Stakes an automatica berth in the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf. it's a classy field of 7, and I'm leaning towards #2 Stephanie's Kitten, to make it 2-2 for the Brown/Ortiz combo by going one better this year after hitting the board the last 2 years. The pace should be genuine with the chalk #1 Tepin, stable mate #3 Kitten's Queen, and turf sophomore My Miss Sophia all liking to go forward. This should suit "Steph" who made up 4L in the stretch for Frankie Dettori last year to just miss by a neck. now 6, she seems to be racing just as well if not better than last year. While it would not surprise for any of the 7 to get up, I'm putting in #1Tepin and #4Hard not To Like as the main dangers. RESULT:I wasn't far off. #4Hard not To Like beat #1Tepin but with #2 Stephanie's Kitten unplaced. As I envisaged, 1,3,6 did go forward VERY fast running the first 3/4 mile in 70:15, more than 2 seconds faster than average, thereby setting up a new SAR track record for 9f (smashing the old one set in the 2007 Baruch). Closers had to make a lot of ground, which HNTL managed to do (just), making up an incredible 15L in the last 3f [less than 5% can make up even 5L], while SK which started 5/4 chalk needed to make up 17L from there but could only manage 12. In retrospect, HNTL was just as likely to do this as SK and wasn't carrying the burden of missing out the past 2 years, so my tip was a bit careless. here's the replay of the 2015 Diana