Travers Stakes analysis: Who will emerge as top 3-year-old?

The Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers Stakes at Saratoga on Saturday drew a field of seven 3-year-olds, including the winners of the Triple Crown races for the first time since 2017 and last year’s 2-year-old champion.

Five of the horses are millionaires with Grade 1 victories in the field, and there's a Grade 3 winner and another with a recent restricted stakes score at Saratoga.

The Travers is carded as race 12 on a 13-race program, which also includes four other Grade 1s, the Forego, H. Allen Jerkens Memorial,  Ballerina and Sword Dancer Invitational.

Here is a full-field analysis for the Travers with the official track morning-line odds from Saratoga oddsmaker David Aragona. The Travers has a scheduled post time if 6:11 p.m. EDT.

1.FortePletcher2.Arcangelo,Jena Antonucci3.Tapit TricePletcher4.MageGustavo Delgado5.National TreasureBob BaffertBob Baffert won the Travers with West Coast in 2017, Arrogate in 2016 and Point Given in 2001. 6.DisarmAsmussen7.ScotlandMottThose four are the top choices in the morning line and present a difficult handicapping decision.

The deciding factor could be Javier Castellano, who will try to win the Travers for a record seventh time. He is 3-for-3 aboard Arcangelo and chose him over Mage. Among Castellano’s Travers victories was the upset of American Pharoah in 2015 aboard Keen Ice at odds of 16-1. His six wins in the Travers ranged in odds from .35-1 on Bernardini in 2006 to 19.5-1 on Afleet Express in 2010.

For the Travers exacta, put Arcangelo with Forte.