In his latest update, Steve Dennis looks ahead to a potentially division-defining race as the winners of all three legs of the Triple Crown clash at Saratoga
We are constantly told never to look back but to look forward, and a relatively humdrum weekend at the Spa offers every incentive to instead look forward to what will be the polar opposite of humdrum – thrilling? exciting? fascinating? rip-roaring? – next weekend.
It ends and begins with the race we’ve all been waiting for, the $1.25m Travers Stakes, the evocatively monikered ‘Midsummer Derby’, which will provide answers to questions that have been simmering away on the backburner of the mind since early spring. The big one, the fundamental one, is who is the best three-year-old colt?
Well, the gang’s all here. This is the first time since 2017 that all the winners of the Triple Crown races will face off in the Travers – when they were all beaten by West Coast. The Kentucky Derby winner Mage comes off a tuning-up runner-up performance in the Haskell, but without a great deal of pace in the race, will he get the set-up he prefers?
Can the Preakness winner National Treasure stretch his speed out to a mile and a quarter, with an easy lead not out of the question? Did Arcangelo simply outstay the field in the Belmont, after only scraping home against third-raters in the G3 Peter Pan? Will the extra yardage suit the grinding, relentless Forte, last year’s champion two-year-old who was denied his chance in the Derby by a late, late scratch?
Perhaps none of these horses are outstanding, perhaps this crop is a middling one. Perhaps the addition of blinkers will help the highly rated Tapit Trice move up from his slightly regressive summer performances, or perhaps the slow-burning stakes-winner Scotland can gatecrash the party?
The Travers is always a great race. Sometimes it has a great winner, a Damascus, an Alydar, an Easy Goer, a Holy Bull, an Arrogate. Sometimes it doesn’t, but that’s helpful to know as well. We just need an answer to the question.
But the outcome of a horse race does not always provide definitive, conclusive answers. Too much can happen between gate and wire for that, but whatever happens in the Travers at Saratoga on Saturday will at least apportion some new clarity to this cloudy picture.
It will come amid a blizzard of top-quality races on an exhilaratingly stakes-heavy afternoon, five G1s following on the heels of Friday’s Personal Ensign, which features the rematch between the superfillies Nest and Clairiere.
The reigning sprint king Elite Power bids to stretch his streak to nine in the Forego, trying to be the hammer to Gunite’s nail for a third time; the greybeard Channel Maker sets up for the Sword Dancer against Chad Brown’s new recruit Stone Age, runner-up in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf; Arabian Lion takes on the unbeaten speedball New York Thunder in the H. Allen Jerkens; and there’s a barnburner of a Ballerina with Eclipse Award winner Goodnight Olive, Echo Zulu, Matareya and Society in the mix.
It’s a mini-Breeders’ Cup, like the good old days when the Cup was a single-day sizzle of a showdown with deep, deep fields. Something special everywhere you look – and the Travers stands tall over everything else, a two-minute duel that will reshape the season.
Good karma: George Weaver
The narrow victory of Amidst Waves in the Bolton Landing on Sunday might have compensated for the demotion of Let’s Go Big Blue in the Rick Violette (see Quotes of the Week), and served to underline trainer George Weaver’s remarkable strength in the two-year-old turf division.
He has a double handful of darts to throw at the Breeders’ Cup, with Amidst Waves joined by Royal Ascot winner Crimson Advocate, dual stakes-winner No Nay Mets, Saratoga maiden winner Good Lord Lorrie and off-the-turf romper Dancing Mischief, and there’s also Belmont Park main-track maiden winner Twisted Filigree.
To add to this profusion of riches, Weaver sits joint-sixth on the Saratoga trainers’ standings with nine wins – it’s been a very good summer and the autumn could be even better.
Bad karma: Linda Rice
She has had a superb meet, but probably the last chance for Linda Rice to make a run for the title evaporated over the weekend, when she rattled in three winners but sent out seven horses to finish second.
It was a frustrating spell for Rice – Costa Terra was beaten a nose, Chileno a half-length – and if the coin had come down heads rather than tails a few times she might still have a chance of toppling Chad Brown, but as they say, that’s racing.
There was almost a dead-heat in this category, as there can’t be much worse karma than being given the sort of name that makes one wonder about the thought processes involved.
The winner of the third race on Sunday is called Strong Odor. Our congratulations and heartfelt sympathies are extended to this six-year-old mare.
One to watch: Hunt Ball
He didn’t get it right first time, but he showed sufficient when runner-up to the highly-rated Risk It in the opener on Saturday, a six-furlong maiden, to suggest that he might one day add a page or two to the family scrapbook.
The Godolphin homebred Hunt Ball is an Into Mischief half-brother to Cody’s Wish – no pressure, then. “He’s pretty game,” said trainer Bill Mott. “We’ll stretch him out a little bit now.”
Catch me if you can
Isn’t there something about a front-runner? There are all sorts of ways to win a race, but the most satisfying way is to do it on the lead, to go out there with sword and shield and say – in horse language, natch – come and get it, molon lave, here is what I’ve got and if you’re better, you’re better, but you’ll have to be good, because I am.
That’s the way Randomized did it in the G1 Alabama, breaking on top and improving her position all the way around until she was a widening four lengths clear at the wire. She had flopped in the Acorn at Belmont Park in June, but trainer Chad Brown had spotted something that could explain that heavy defeat.
Like the proverbial seven-stone weakling, Randomized didn’t like having dirt kicked in her face. A change of tactics meant that next time she went gate-to-wire in a stakes at Saratoga, and the Alabama went the same way. Catch me if you can – and they couldn’t, and it was great to watch.
Got your number
With 11 days of racing remaining, the trainers’ and jockeys’ titles are pretty much signed and sealed, waiting only for delivery. Six winners for Chad Brown last week – including the two Graded stakes of the weekend with Randomized and Aspray – took him seven clear of Linda Rice (29-22), while Irad Ortiz looks uncatchable in the riders’ division, 13 ahead of Luis Saez (42-29) after eight winners through the week.
The leading owner is Klaravich Stables, the vehicle of Seth Klarman, whose 17 wins are almost three times as many as his nearest pursuer from twice as many runners as the next busiest owner.
Quotes of the week
“I thought it was as good as a horse could work. We expect it, but it’s always good to see. She’s been a star since day one.”
Todd Pletcher waxes lyrical about his top-class filly Nest, who is clearly dialled right in for the Personal Ensign on Friday
“My horse was running and the other horse came out and probably hurt my horse. He did cost me, so I think it was the right call.”
Irad Ortiz, who got the Rick Violette in the stewards’ room after losing it by a nose on Ramblin’ Wreck
“I never touched him. I never stopped his momentum. Nothing.”
Jose Lezcano, who lost the Rick Violette in the stewards’ room after winning it by a nose on Let’s Go Big Blue
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