2018 Travers Stakes: Late Saturday Odds, Betting Tips, and Good Magic's Battle With Himself

Forbes

25 August 2018

2018 Travers Stakes: Late Saturday Odds, Betting Tips, and Good Magic's Battle With Himself

It's axiomatic that race day brings with it the burn of added clarity on any field of runners, and 2018's $1.25-million Travers Stakes is holding up that end of the bargain in spades. Come hell or high water, the money will make some decisions. Despite this year's initially somewhat hazy, middling field of eleven, or more accurately, because there is a gaggle of similarly talented runners gunning for favorite Good Magic, the race itself, its length and its long reputation as a killer of favorites, has become a larger-than-life character in this afternoon's run. Bluntly put, there are ten horses, and the Travers, in the Travers.

To help us negotiate these and other imponderables, we'll bring in the Bluegrass Wise Man, our stalwart Kentucky horseman and owner, but before that, the late odds, which we will update as frequently as the shifting sands of money direct us until post time, which is scheduled for 5:44 p.m.

Update: Meistermind, slated to break from the sixth post position, has been scratched this morning. It's now a ten-horse field for the 2018 Travers, and the money is starting to talk. The sharp but relatively untested Catholic Boy has dropped to 7-1 and is lower in the odds than the Jim Dandy winner Tenfold, at 16-1, as of 5:40 p.m, fourteen minutes before post time. Vino Rosso has dropped to 6-1, edging lower than Wonder Gadot.

Post Position, Horse, Live Odds, (Morning Line)

1. Trigger Warning, 60-1, (30-1)
2. Wonder Gadot, 9-1, (5-1)
3. Gronkowski, 4-1, (4-1)
4. Bravazo, 14-1, (12-1)
5. Vino Rosso, 6-1, (10-1)
6. Meistermind, (30-1) (SCRATCHED)
7. King Zachary, 26-1, (15-1)
8. Mendelssohn, 11-1, (12-1)
9. Good Magic, 7-5, (2-1)
10. Tenfold, 16-1, (8-1)
11. Catholic Boy, 7-1, (8-1)

(Odds updated: 5:40 p.m. : nyra.com)

Saratoga's winningest trainer-of-the-moment, local boy Chad Brown, from just up the road in Mechanicville, New York, best incorporates the contradictions of this year's Travers field. With Good Magic, Brown will be running the front of the race. With his redoubtable second entry Gronkowski, Brown will be bringing a big late run of the sort that can nuke Good Magic. Gronk brought a heart-stopping, monstrous run right at Justify in the Belmont, and he did that despite his bad break. In the weeks since the Belmont, handicappers and horse lovers alike have pored over that break. There is every chance that Gronkowski, now actually partly owned by the irrepressible non-equine Gronk, can get a better break this afternoon.

Nine of today's Travers contenders, including the favorite, are Kentucky-breds, so with no further ado, we'll bring in the Bluegrass Wise Man ™. Nota bene: A longtime owner and horseman, the Wise Man has no horses racing in the 2018 Travers. He will, however, be betting the race.

It's race day, so let's take a last, hard look at Good Magic. He has a great shot, but it still just doesn't seem like it's his race to lose.

Bluegrass Wise Man ™: Correct. He's a great colt, a tough, honest, hard-trying racehorse who has clearly taken the mantle as the top three-year-old now that Justify is done. He will be there in the end. Chad Brown is no joke, the winningest trainer at this meeting by a long shot. But in this field, Good Magic is not a lock at all. First, it's the Travers, and Saratoga, and it's called the graveyard of the favorites for a reason. Horses can surprise us here, which is why it's always such a great meeting. It's odd to say it like this, but the middle-class-ness of the field just behind him, by which I mean the veterans, are the biggest danger. So, I don't have any real questions about Good Magic except for the biggest one, consistency. Good Magic ran second in the Derby, fourth in the Preakness, won the Haskell and is supposed to be sharp as a tack now. I don't see him being even money at post time, which is a reflection of my point: Can he bring his best game here. Chad thinks so, and I would agree with him, but what makes this a better Travers than it might otherwise be, and a much more fun race to bet, is that Good Magic is vulnerable because there are horses in the field, at or near his abilities, who can jump up and snatch the thing from him.

And in your vast horseman's brain, those are?

Bluegrass Wise Man ™: Of them, I like Tenfold. And, I like Vino Rosso a little. They both ran well in the Jim Dandy. I still want to like Gronk and I sort of like Mendelssohn, but it's race day, which has a way of sharpening your choices, so today, I like Gronk more. Again, Chad Brown and his thirty-three wins here in the last month tips the balance for me. Gronk likes to come with his run, which he did in the Belmont ably, but he missed the break. He's simply going to have to get a better start. I'm also rooting for (trainer) D. Wayne, because he's got a bit of a surprise horse, so I can also see Bravazzo getting in there, but Bravazo is going to have to step up and bring it, and Lukas has admitted as much. It's gonna be a great race, because there are a lot of horses – I'm speaking of the veterans I've named behind Good Magic in the odds – who are gonna be really duking it out on the backstretch and into the far turn.

Give us your read on the speed in this race.

Bluegrass Wise Man ™: There's not really a lot of true speed, which is the other thing that makes the race interesting today. They have a long run to the first turn, so there's no reason, other than the native appetites of this or that horse, to just flat-out gun it out of the gate. The three horses on the outside, Good Magic, Tenfold and Catholic Boy, have tactical, be-near-the-front speed, but we aren't gonna see a Promises Fulfilled in this race. In fact, Promises Fulfilled runs in the sixth race today.

Wonder Gadot is a phenom in her own right, but in this crowd, let's have another race-day look. Do you think that she'll prove the morning line right and actually show?

Bluegrass Wise Man ™: As I've said, I don’t see this as being a great class of three-year-old colts, which is probably why (trainer Mark) Casse entered her. Wonder Gadot has won at one-and-a-quarter miles, but that was at Woodbine versus Canadian breds and, don't forget, on a synthetic surface. Synthetic, okay? She's robust enough to like the dirt, and she's a great filly for sure, but this is the Travers. Casse is 2 for 46 at Saratoga this meet, which by any reckoning could be better. She may – emphasis on may – hit the board, but barring some freak accident, she is not going to win. I'll go out on a limb this morning and say that she doesn't even hit the board.

As your sign-off, strike some of that trademark Wise Man ™ last-minute race-day betting terror into our hearts.

Bluegrass Wise Man ™: This morning, we have the strange interplay of two contradictory facts on the favorite, which will pull and push the money on exotics or straight plays in two different ways. First, despite the odds in his favor, nobody knows whether Good Magic will bring his best self to the run, and nobody knows if his best self is good enough. Second: Chad Brown knows the Spa, and his horses do too. It's their home track. Chad's stellar record for this meet proves it. The key to Good Magic is about Chad, and what he's got. What he's got is the dirt of Saratoga in his DNA. So, do we bet the trainer to give the horse the edge? In this case, I would.