🔥 FLAVIEN PRAT JUST STOLE Irad Ortiz Jr.’S SHIRT AT SARATOGA – Chad Brown secretly ‘plays big’ and shocks the horse racing world!
In a weekend that will go down as one of the most dramatic shifts in Saratoga history, Flavien Prat didn’t just win a race—he hijacked the narrative, torched the pecking order, and left NYRA’s long-standing king, Irad Ortiz Jr., in the dust. With an ice-cold performance atop the blistering filly Fionn in the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks Invitational, Prat sent a clear message: the crown is no longer nailed to Ortiz’s head. And in an even stranger twist, Chad Brown—the very trainer behind Ortiz’s recent decline—was reportedly playing a double game behind the curtains, shocking insiders across the horse racing world.
Let’s start with what unfolded on the track. Fionn, trained by Brad Cox and guided with surgical precision by Flavien Prat, delivered an electrifying turn of foot in the stretch that not only destroyed the field but humiliated Lavender Disaster—Ortiz’s ride and one of Chad Brown’s highest-pedigree fillies. While Ortiz struggled to keep Lavender afloat after the second turn, Prat and Fionn sliced through the final furlong with clinical ease, crossing the wire in 1:44.84—one of the fastest Belmont Oaks finishes in recent memory.
The reaction? Pandemonium.
Fans weren’t just stunned by the result—they were stunned by the silence. Ortiz Jr., usually vocal and charismatic post-race, vanished. No quotes. No interviews. Just a nod and a quick exit. Meanwhile, Chad Brown, who had saddled Lavender Disaster, shocked everyone by not making excuses. Instead, rumors spread fast: Brown had quietly advised a group of owners to back Fionn days before the race—despite Lavender being his own runner. The implications were explosive.
Social media lit up. “Chad just bet against his own filly?” one fan tweeted. Another replied: “Ortiz didn’t lose. He got left out of the plan.”
If true, it adds a new layer of tension to the already shifting power dynamic at NYRA. Irad Ortiz Jr. has dominated New York racing for over five years. But the rise of Prat—once seen as just a visitor from the West Coast—has accelerated. With five wins on the same Saratoga card and Fionn now positioned as the top 3-year-old filly in training, Prat’s move from respected jockey to full-blown star feels complete.
And Chad Brown? He may have just pulled off the ultimate insider coup—hedging his bets in broad daylight, sacrificing Lavender for a long-term power play with Fionn’s connections. It’s dirty. It’s brilliant. And it’s exactly the kind of twist that Saratoga’s legend was built on.
Horse racing, at its core, is about reading people just as much as reading horses. This weekend, Prat read the field like a novel—and Brown may have rewritten the whole damn book. Ortiz? He’s still in the story. But for now, he’s lost his shirt.
