Desvio reeled in Safe Trip Home in the shadow of the wire to notch a half-length victory in the G2 Sycamore Stakes on the turf at Keeneland on Friday, 10 October.
The victory marked the first Graded Stakes win for the four-year-old Yoshida gelding, who had finished third in the G3 Dinner Party Stakes earlier this year at Pimlico.
Settled near the rear of the 10-horse field by jockey John Velazquez, Desvio was content to let Utah Beach and Ohana Honor set a leisurely pace early in the 12-furlong turf marathon. Tipped out six-wide at the top of the stretch, Desvio came with a furious rally down the center of the course, just getting up in time to overhaul Safe Trip Home nearing the wire and get the victory.
Bred in Kentucky by Eliza St. George and Lee Mauberret, Desvio is out of the mare, Fitzrovia, an unraced daughter of Uncle Mo. Second dam, Marylebone, won the G1 Matron Stakes as a juvenile, and is also the dam of Stakes winner, Bow Bells (Giant’s Causeway), and Stakes-placed Chief Little Hawk, Wigmore Street, and Sloane Square.
Yoshida has sired 69 individual winners and four Stakes winners thus far, including Grayosh, winner of the G2 Lake Placid Stakes at Saratoga and Santuario, a G2/Classic winner in Peru.
