Over the last decade, we have a surprisingly low view of what it takes to win the G1 Travers Stakes at Saratoga. While there has been one outstanding winner in Arrogate and two very good ones in West Coast and Tiz The Law, the median TRC Computer Race Rating is just 118, which is low for a race that has been historically very important.
Great races like the Travers rarely take a nosedive for very long, but, once again, the field for Saturday’s race looks a little light on threats to the prohibitive favourite ESSENTIAL QUALITY.
We have rated this horse among the global elite since his Breeders’ Cup Juvenile victory and it will be seriously disappointing if he cannot land a seventh Graded stakes and fourth G1. Perhaps some of the previous winners give reason for pause. Let’s hope not.
Essential Quality sits at #6 in this week’s TRC classifications. This looks about as high as we can rate him for now, for the five horses above him have huge figures in turf races which are more connected to the rest of the world through form lines. In rankings terms, dirt horses – especially 3-year-olds – have the problem of being discrete from most other proven quine Galacticos until such time as the Breeders’ Cup rolls around.
Essential Quality’s margin over the remainder of the Travers runners is huge in terms of their ranks, shown here after the hashtag and before the horse’s name:
If you look down the TRC column, you should get a good idea about how the computer perceives the difference between ratings (or performance figures) and rankings (the value of the portfolio of a horse’s career).
Look along the row belonging to #337 Keepmeinmind: the son of Laoban (the 2016 G2 Jim Dandy winner, by Uncle Mo) has performed to figures of 121, 117 and 116, which are all better than the three best efforts of #273 Midnight Bourbon. Yet, the computer prefers the latter.
This is because Keepmeinmind has finished behind #322 Masqueperade and #494 King Fury in the G3 Ohio Derby at Thistledown and it is more consistent with all the form lines in the database (weighted by their recency) to rank these horses close to one another than it is to consider Keepmeinmind’s close second to Essential Quality evidence that he should be included among the global elite just behind the Godolphin runner.
Now, this could be wrong. After all, Keepmeinmind has previous form with Essential Quality that also suggests he can give the hot favourite a race – he was third in the previously mentioned 2020 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, beaten only two lengths.
The writer actually regards this horse as a very useful closer when the race is run to suit, but the problem with ranking him on the basis of those two performances is that he has posted a ton of bad tape since, when a race hasn’t gone his way, placing 6574 in four Graded stakes in 2021 before the Ohio Derby suggested he had turned the corner.
By contrast, Midnight Bourbon’s last two efforts are very solid. He ran a sharp second to Rombauer in the Preakness, left behind readily but still beaten only 3½ lengths and hanging onto second well. Then, he was in the process of running really well in the Haskell when he was hampered and unseated his rider. We have rated him as having been about to finish the same distance behind the disqualified winner, Hot Rod Charlie (who gave Essential Quality such a race in the Belmont), as he did behind Rombauer.
So, while he doesn’t get big performance figures for these efforts, his ranking above Keepmeinmind at #273 reflects that he has been mixing it with good horses of late. We rank him as having the main chance to win – if the favourite slips.
For his part, Masqueperade went on to finish 2¾ lengths third to Essential Quality and Keepmeinmind in the G2 Jim Dandy. We think this could be a little misleading and that he has a better chance than this suggests.
We chose not to promote the listed Curlin Stakes to a G3 and thus include it in our data. Again, this could be a mistake as it highlights the chance of the lightly raced Miles D. It is just that we have such a low ranking on his conqueror, #1253 Dynamic One, that the race did not pass our filter for inclusion, but we may add it retrospectively if the form shows up in the finish here.
Dynamic One was a 15.6/1 shot when a head second to Bourbonic in the G2 Wood Memorial, which we rate as his best effort on 111. This is a decent figure for the grade and the winner sits at #409 this week, so this is another indication that Dynamic One (and Miles D) would have been ranked quite a bit higher if we had put that Curlin Stakes in. Please take a note of this.
Finally, King Fury is definitely worth a mention. He did not figure on grass last up, but that Thistledown effort was sharp and he was actually very impressive when winning the G3 Lexington.
All these horses are good. But surely they are not Essential Quality good.