Four Roses Thoroughbreds’ 5-year-old gelding Diamond Stripes parlayed Palm Meadows training into victory a half-world away in the $1 million Godolphin Mile (G2) Saturday at Nad Al Sheba on the Dubai World Cup (G1) undercard.

            Trained by Rick Dutrow at the Boynton Beach training center, the son of Notebook surged in the final furlong under jockey Edgar Prado to capture the one-turn mile over Godolphin’s Elusive Warning.

            “When he started coming back on the leader, I knew they were in trouble,” said Dutrow, who watched the race on television in a suite at Gulfstream Park. “When he starts coming on like that nobody is getting past him and, with no late comers, I knew they were in trouble.”

            Diamond Stripes finished fourth in the $1 million Sunshine Millions Classic at Santa Anita Jan. 26 over Cushion Track at 1 1/8 miles. Saturday’s victory was his first since capturing the Meadowlands Cup Handicap (G2) on Oct 5.

            “I think the one-turn mile was the thing that made the difference today,” said Dutrow. “We might have been trying to push him a little farther than he wanted to go with his mile-and-an-eighth races.

“Now we have to think about the Met Mile (the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap on May 26 at Belmont Park). There aren’t too many big handicap horses in the division this year. It looks like this is his distance. They always talk about having to wait with horses coming back from Dubai, but we’ll see if the Met Mile would be about right.”

            Diamond Stripes was an occasional workmate of IEAH Stables and Paul Pompa’s 3-year-old Big Brown, the morning-line favorite for Saturday’s $1 million Florida Derby (G1).