The $1.25 Million Travers Stakes: Post Postions, Odds, and Exaggerator's Fatal Love of Mud

Arabian Lion ran huge when last seen in the Woody Stephens (G1) at Belmont Park, winning by 1 3/4 lengths with a powerful 107 Brisnet speed rating. He looms as a logical win threat while sticking to the same seven-furlong distance for Saturday's ninth race at Saratoga, the H. Allen Jerkens Memorial (G1, post time 4:19 p.m. EDT). Caramel…

If someone were to mention that Saturday's Travers Stakes at Saratoga features a relatively small field of seven horses, that would likely qualify as disappointing news. But, oh, what a field it is. For just the third time in the last 41 years, the starting gate for the "Mid-Summer Derby" will include all three winners of this year's Triple Crown…

The biggest Saturday of the Saratoga season this week features five Grade 1 stakes, led by the $1.25 million Travers (G1), a race which could go a long way towards determining the leading three-year-old male of the year. Here are a few notable trends over the past decade regarding some of those top-level fixtures. Saratoga is well known for being…

Kentucky Derby winner Mage is expected to race for the first time since finishing third in the Preakness when the 3-year-old colt takes on seven rivals in the $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on Saturday. Mage drew the No. 4 post position on Wednesday and was made the co-second choice behind 5-2 morning-line favorite Arabian Knight,…

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y-Nothing new at old Saratoga this summer. As has been the case for many decades, most of racing's stars will be in town for America's most important Thoroughbred meet of the year. The first race of the 40 days of the 155th season opens at 1:10 p.m. Thursday with a 10-race program at Saratoga Race Course. By the time the meeting…

In its field, the 2022 Travers resembles that cute little neighborhood restaurant that you think you've kept a secret until you turn around one evening and realize that everybody who's anybody in town has shown up. That Rich Strike and Early Voting, Kentucky Derby and Preakness winners, didn't make the cut into the top three morning line favorites…

The 153rd running of the Travers headlines the biggest day of the summer at Saratoga. Six graded stakes including five Grade 1 races highlight the 13 race card. The $1.25 million Travers drew a very competitive field of eight runners for the'Midsummer Derby', and post time for the 1 1/4 mile Travers is 5:44 p.m. ET and Race 11 on the card. The…

Race 11: 1¼ (Dirt), Travers Stakes (G1), Purse $1.25 Million, 3 (Saturday) Late August means one thing for Thoroughbred horse racing … the Mid-Summer Derby … also known as the Travers Stakes! Always a highlight during Saratoga's Meet, it was always intended to offer another leg, an extension of the season's Triple Crown. Once the Breeders' Cup took…

Michael "The Wizard" Kipness has been a professional horse racing handicapper since 1987 and has been featured in The New York Times. From Saratoga Race Course, the Las Vegas resident (@WizardPicks) analyzes the seven-horse field in Saturday's 152nd Travers Stakes, designating each horse as a contender or a pretender. Kipness' full card selections…

SARATOGA SPRINGS - In 1942, Hall of Fame trainer John M. Gaver, Sr. earned a rare and prestigious double when he won the Whitney Handicap with Swing and Sway and the Travers Stakes with Shut Out, both for the legendary Greentree Stable. Now, 79 years later, reigning Eclipse Award-winning trainer Brad Cox is in position today to become the first…

At nine furlongs, the 2021 Pegasus World Cup is a deceptively long race this year, not least because its narrow favorite, Knicks Go, is a known - or at least has been touted as a "born" - speedster. As we know, speed comes at a price, be it in horse racing or any other endeavor, and the bottom line of that inflexible equation is that you have to…

Kentucky Derby winner Country House won't be running in the 52 edition of the $1 million Haskell Invitational on Saturday, but the horse that crossed the finish line first in the Run for the Roses will. The Derby finish back on May 4 saw Maximum Security hit the wire first, but he was disqualified to 17 for interference and runner-up Country House…

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…

Saturday sees the 149th running of the Travers Stakes at upstate New York's Saratoga Race Course, with 11 contenders eyeing the $1.25 million prize. The prestigious race is for three-year-olds and is run over a distance of 1 1⁄4 miles. Triple Crown winner Justify will not be present at Saratoga. He has been forced to retire due to an ankle…

In today's cliff-hanging $1.25-million Travers Stakes at Saratoga, the most important past performances for players are not those of 2017's Triple Crown races, whose winners are the favorites this afternoon. True, the winners' work in those three races will deserve a look before putting the big money down. But, actually, for players, the two most…

As this horse race has done for 141 years, the 2017 Preakness will sorely test this spring's unruly crop of athletes-this time with a fast, dry track and a crazy-quilt, moderately-sized field of ten. The post positions for Saturday's race have just been drawn at Pimlico, and the track odds have been set. As expected, the supernova-hot Todd…

Horse races don't occur in a vacuum. Put another way, every race happens at a particular point in a horse's life, and in that, Gulfstream's 2017 Pegasus World Cup Invitational, dangling its world-beating $12 million purse, could not have ordered up an edgier May-December narrative than that of what seems like it could be a fine match race between…

Saratoga can be a cinch of a place for rain, tucked up in the New York foothills under the Canadian jet stream, with the Great Lakes lying just to the west and the North Atlantic to the east. But this week, no sacrifice was bloody enough to convince the gods of weather to lend a hand to the Desormeaux brothers and their mount Exaggerator by…

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - There is a full field of 14 entered for the 147th running of the Travers Stakes on Saturday, including the Preakness victor Exaggerator and the Belmont champion Creator. Still, the Midsummer Derby, as the race is known, is a wide-open affair in a year in which the crop of male 3-year-olds seems evenly matched. The…

It was hard during Saturday's Belmont Stakes not to think about American Pharoah, the colt who a year ago delivered a historic performance at the race in becoming just the 12th Triple Crown winner ever and horse racing's first in 37 years. When the jockey Victor Espinoza and American Pharoah turned for home, they transformed this grand old…

Exaggerator has taken home the second gem in horse racing's triple crown. The colt won a mud-filled Preakness Stakes on Saturday, handing rival Nyquist the first loss of his career and ending his shot at a triple crown. It wasn't an easy win for Exaggerator, though. For much of the race, the colt trailed not only Nyquist but Uncle Lino, as well. As…

After a dominant performance in the Kentucky Derby, Nyquist enters the Preakness Stakes as a substantial favorite to take the second leg of horse racing's Triple Crown. While a small handful of Derby contenders will return in an attempt to knock Nyquist from his perch, much of the field is likely to be made up of newcomers looking to prevent a…

The posts are drawn. The odds are set. Now all that's left is actually running the 142nd Kentucky Derby. Saturday's race features a favorite on par with where American Pharoah sat a year ago. Around this time last year, Pharoah was a 3-1 favorite. That distinction now goes to Nyquist, who is attempting to follow Pharoah's path to Triple Crown…

Making his stakes debut, Arrogate wrested command from stablemate American Freedom into the first turn and ran right into the history books Saturday, winning the Grade 1 Travers Stakes in a record time of 1:59.36 seconds before a packed house of 48630 at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Smashing General Assembly's 1 1/4-mile stakes…

OCEANPORT - There will be plenty of good racing at Monmouth Park on Sunday, in addition to the $1 million Grade I betfair.com Haskell Invitational.The Haskell undercard will feature four graded stakes in the $200000 Grade II Monmouth Cup, featuring defending champion Bradester; the $150000 Grade III Oceanport Stakes; the $100000 Grade III Molly…