Up the Backstretch: Two out of three ain’t bad for Travers
(Sports Network) – Last year, neither of the two 3-year-olds who combined to win the three Triple Crown races made it to Saratoga for the Travers Stakes. The “Mid-Summer Derby” still proved to be exciting with a dead heat finish for win.
This year, however, two of the three winning colts from the Triple Crown will leave from the starting gate Saturday, Aug. 24 in the 1 1/4-mile event. Kentucky Derby winner Orb will be shipping in from Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland and Belmont Stakes champ Palace Malice will walk over from his Saratoga barn.
Preakness Stakes winner Oxbow suffered an injury during the running of the Haskell Invitational and will not race in the “Mid-Summer Derby.”
Summer Bird in 2009 was the last Triple Crown race winner to also claim the Travers. The colt won the Belmont Stakes and was voted the Eclipse Award as that year’s champion 3-year-old colt.
Coming into this year’s “Mid-Summer Derby” trainer Shug McGaughey decided to rest Orb and had him training in Maryland with a quick visit to the New Bolton Center in Pennsylvania for a physical. The colt will be moved from Fair Hill 13 days ahead of the Travers after having a Saturday workout.
“We kind of put our heads together and said, ‘Let’s get our last major work done there and then move him up here,'” McGaughey said. “I’m very relaxed with this. He’ll have two weeks here. He’ll have his major work, then have a week to get adapted here and we’ll blow him out on Monday (August 19). He’ll have plenty of time to settle in.”
With Orb not racing in either the Jim Dandy or Haskell Invitational, McGaughey needs his 3-year-old to win the Travers to get back on top of the division.
Moving into the lead of the 3-year-old division are Jim Dandy champ Palace Malice and Haskell winner Verrazano, both trained by Todd Pletcher.
“There’s probably four or five horses, and maybe there’s some we’re not even talking about that could win this thing,” said Verrazano’s co-owner Bryan Sullivan about the 3-year-old championship. “But, Orb’s got two Grade Ones. You know, Palace Malice is a nice horse … But, it’s going to be a tough two or three months to kind of sort through all this, and I think races like the Haskell, like the Travers and Jim Dandy. And then, where do you go from there in the fall, that’s really going to be the case. I mean, some of these races, maybe the Kelso. Some of these races, I mean, they’re going to be the races that could kind of sway who’s on top. And I think to a certain extent we may not even get any clarity, but maybe it comes down to performances. So, maybe we need to awe some people going forward and to show that we’re the horse that we know we are.”
The last great crop of 3-year-old colts came in 2007 with Kentucky Derby and Travers winner Street Sense, Preakness and Breeders’ Cup Classic champ Curlin along with Hard Spun, second in the Classic, Kentucky Derby and Haskell.
There’s great potential in the current crop of 3-year-olds as long as they continue to race and not spend too much time resting where the fans can’t see them.
Categorized in: Horses