SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The Grade 1 Diana will not be run until Saturday afternoon, but anybody looking to get a little preview of the race need only have come over to the Oklahoma training track Monday morning, where four of the six expected starters got in their final tune-ups for the event.

 

Leading the way was two-time defending Diana champion Forever Together, who will shoot for the hat trick Saturday. The 2008 female turf champion, Forever Together has dropped five consecutive starts since her head decision in the 2009 Diana, but she looked as good as ever in Monday's prep. With jockey Danielle Hodson aboard, Forever Together began to pick up the pace leaving the 5 1/2-furlong pole, posting splits of 11.92 seconds, 23.69, and 35.88 before completing five furlongs in 59.76 and galloping out six furlongs in 1:13.18 around the dogs.

 

"That's about what we were looking for," trainer Jonathan Sheppard said while watching Forever Together take several rounds around the walking ring with Hodson still aboard back at his barn after the work. "She's already got a good foundation, we just needed her to zip a little bit just one time. Fortunately, the weather was clear and cool, because she has a little trouble with hot weather."

 

Sheppard said having Forever Together back to race again this year came as a pleasant surprise.

 

"When I went into the interview room after she finished third in the Breeders' Cup, I was a little emotional because I thought that was the last time she was going to run," Sheppard said. "I wasn't really expecting it, and to be honest was rather shocked when Mr. [George] Strawbridge threw it out as a plan that she'd compete one more season. I felt like I'd just gotten a reprieve."

 

Proviso, Phola, and My Princess Jess, the first three finishers in that order in the Grade 1 Just a Game at Belmont on June 5, also tuned up for the Diana on a very pleasant and cool morning.

 

Proviso went an easy five furlongs in 1:03.40 before galloping out very strongly into and around the turn with trainer Bill Mott keeping a watchful eye aboard his pony from the finish line. Phola worked a half-mile in 48.35, while the late-running My Princess Jess breezed five-eighths in 1:03.21, completing her final quarter-mile in 23.80.

 

"It certainly would be good for her future if she could get a piece or win it," trainer Barclay Tagg of My Princess Jess, who finished fifth, 2 1/2 lengths behind Forever Together, in the 2009 Diana. "She's really not a mile-and-one-eighth horse, and things would have to set up right for her to win. But if the jock will wait with her, she'll give a good late kick."