The Travers and the Triple Crown (Updated)

 

The Travers and the Triple Crown (updated)

Joseph Di Rienzi
August 21, 2023

 

The Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course, renewed for the 154^th time on August 26, 2023, has been called “The Mid-Summer Derby” in that it is the most significant prize for classic aged horses (three years-old) after the spring Triple Crown series of races (Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes). Over the years, horses that have triumphed in one or more of the classics have confirmed their top form in the Travers. Racing exemplars such as Man O’War, Whirlaway, Native Dancer, Damascus, Arts and Letters and Easy Goer have all won the Travers after capturing one of more of the Triple Crown races. However, in the last 80 years, there has been a curious oddity that when the Travers field includes winners of all three classics (note, this can be one, two or three horses), none of them are able to win the Travers Stakes.

I chronicled all this in a blog post of 14 August 2017, the last time this situation in the Travers present itself. The following chart summarizes its content.

Winners

Date	Kentucky Derby	Preakness Stakes	Belmont Stakes	Travers Stakes
1963	Chateaugay	Candy Spots	Chateaugay	Crewman
1978	Affirmed	Affirmed	Affirmed	Alydar*
1981	Pleasant Colony	Pleasant Colony	Summing	Willow Hour
1982	Gato Del Sol	Aloma’s Ruler	Conquistador Cielo	Runaway Groom
1987	Alysheba	Alysheba	Bet Twice	Java Gold
1991	Strike the Gold	Hansel	Hansel	Corporate Report
2015	American Pharoah	American Pharoah	American Pharoah	Keen Ice

*Affirmed finished first but was disqualified for interference.

Here is what happened in the 2017 edition of the Travers:

West Coast winning the 2017 Travers Stakes
(BloodHorse)

In that a separate colt won each of the three Triple Crown races, the male sophomore leadership was unsettled in 2017. The classic victors (Always Dreaming, Cloud Computing and Tapwrit) all targeted the Travers Stakes making this race a championship event. The Kentucky Derby and Preakness winners, Always Dreaming and Cloud Computing, respectively, made the Jim Dandy Stakes their first race since the Preakness. Always Dreaming and Cloud Computing were racing in first and second, respectively, until deep stretch when they were challenged by the race’s other three runners. The winner, Good Samaritan was making his first start on dirt after being a successful stakes performer on turf. At the finish, the son of Harlan’s Holiday, trained by Bill Mott, was 4¾ lengths in front of longshot Giuseppe the Great who was, himself, a ½ length in front of Always Dreaming. Recent maiden winner Pavel was a head back in fourth, but a head in front of Cloud Computing. Unlike the other two classic winners, Belmont Stakes victor Tapwrit was brought up to the Travers on works alone.

There were twelve runners in the 148^th running of the Mid-Summer Derby. In addition to the classic heroes, there were the first two finishes in the aforementioned Jim Dandy, as well Girvin and McCracken, who finished, respectively, noses apart in the Haskell Invitational Stakes. Trainer Bob Baffert had an entry in Mary and Gary West’s West Coast. The burly son of Flatter from the champion mare Caressing was following a similar path that the previous year’s Travers victor, Arrogate, forged. Unraced as a juvenile, West Coast broke his maiden in his second start at Santa Anita, then was narrowly beaten in the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland. After an allowance victory back at Santa Anita, he shipped east to Belmont Park and won the Easy Goer Stakes on Belmont Stakes Day. Returned again back to California, West Coast was an impressive winner of the Los Alamitos Derby. With Mike Smith aboard for the Travers, all the signs were pointing for a Baffert/Smith repeat.

Just as he did with Arrogate, Smith took advantage of an inside post (no. 3) to send West Coast to the lead, and, in the run to the clubhouse turn, he was chased by the three classic winners. That was as close as they came to West Coast as Smith set a measured pace. In the stretch, first Irap and then Gunnevera mounted challenges, but West Coast under Smith’s cajoling was able to repel their bids. At the finish, the Baffert trainee was 3¼ lengths in front of Gunnevera, who in turn, was 2¼ lengths ahead of Irap. This year’s Triple Crown victors finished fourth (Tapwrit), eighth (Cloud Computing) and ninth (Always Dreaming). The combined defeat by these three horses continued a curious oddity that is the subject of this piece.

So the anomaly still holds that when winners of all three classics are entered in the Travers Stakes, none of them are victorious. However, since the opportunity has only presented itself eight times in eighty years, this is not a statistically valid conclusion. This year Mage (Kentucky Derby winner), National Treasure (Preakness victor) and Arcangelo (Belmont Stakes hero) are all entered in the 2023 Travers Stakes and are opposed by the previous year’s two-year-old champion Forte. If they do all meet, this will be a further test of this anomaly.