On Saturday at Saratoga, a full field of fourteen horse will enter the starting gate for the historic $1,250,000 Travers Stakes (gr. I). With three different winners of the Triple Crown races this year, the latter nickname seems appropriate on Saturday, especially for Exaggerator and Creator. Let’s have a Travers. With the [13-horse] field I think everybody is taking a shot and that makes it competitive.
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The other Grade 1’s on the card include the Personal Ensign (Race 6) which will be a rematch of last year’s controversial disqualification between 2-Curalina (9-5) and 1-I’m a Chatterbox (4-1).
“For me being from the area here, this is the biggest race in the world for me”, he said. “There isn’t a horse, other than Exaggerator, that really stands out there, and if it’s a dry track, you don’t know what he’s gonna do”.
DESTIN (No. 8, 10-1) wound up third in the Jim Dandy after chasing Laoban throughout. As you might recall, Laoban won the Jim Dandy in an astonishing upset, prevailing at 27-1 in what was the first victory of his eight-race career.
“If they go (a half-mile) 47 and change, I want the lead”. Exaggerator might be by far the most accomplished member of this bulky 14-horse Travers field, but his accomplishments were not fashioned in a vacuum. He posted a bullet workout on August 20 to signal his readiness for the Travers, and my feeling is that Laoban might just be reaching his peak. Ridden by Irad Ortiz, Jr., he needs to make amends for a lackluster performance in the Jim Dandy, when he was last-of-six horses the entire way. Catch him if you can! His stalking style should have him well positioned turning for home.
Trainer Keith Desormeaux said of Exaggerator, who bids to become the eighth Preakness victor to land the Travers: “His success isn’t dependent on a sloppy track, but his success is dependent on a pace to run at”.
My third pick is Governor Malibu, who has had excuses in the Belmont Stakes and Jim Dandy.
“I think American Freedom is the quicker of the two”, Baffert said. He had two subsequent works for the Travers, where he drew post 11 and was installed at morning-line odds of 30-1.
Creator was also in the Jim Dandy, and he had no chance to rally into such soft fractions. “His success is not dependent on a sloppy track, but his success is dependent on a pace to run at”, the conditioner told the NYRA notes team. The horse who bested him (Creator) will be, too. And to support their position, they will point to his win on a fast track in last summer’s Saratoga Special, even if that victory came at the expense of a suspect field.
I would also like to mention Arrogate, who is a major wildcard in this race. While some favorites have won during this timeframe – Bernardini in 2006 and Street Sense in 2007 prevailed at short prices, and favored Alpha finished in a dead heat with longshot Golden Ticket in 2012 – just as many have failed, including 2015 Triple Crown victor American Pharoah. All three of those races were against older horses, and while two of them featured slow paces, Arrogate finished powerfully each time and looks like a horse that will thrive at ten furlongs. While a lot can happen between now and the Breeders’ Cup Classic on November 5 at Santa Anita, the truth is neither Nyquist nor Exaggerator have yet shown they are in the same league as our two top older males – California Chrome, who was monstrous winning last week’s Pacific Classic, and Frosted, so impressive winning the Met Mile and Whitney in his past two starts.
With all of this in mind, I think the best approach to handicapping the Travers is to downgrade the chances of the top-two Haskell finishers Exaggerator (#7) and American Freedom (#2) while upgrading the chances of the locally prepped contenders.
Travers hopefuls may also be encouraged by recent history, which has seen several longshots come in over the past few years. Who do you like in the Travers Stakes?
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Now it’s your turn!
