Beer: How I'll play Saratoga on Travers Day

Travers Day at Saratoga offers 13 races, including six Grade 1s, and features 14 of the best 3-year-olds in the country going 1 1/4 miles on the main track in a wide-open running of the Midsummer Derby. Where to begin?

There will be no shortage of opportunities on a card that offers a $1 million all-Grade 1 pick four (races 8-11), a $400,000-guaranteed pick five (beginning in race 1), and a $250,000-guaranteed pick six (beginning in race 6 and coverall all Grade 1 races).

Because the pick four offers something of a free square in the Sword Dancer, let’s focus on another sequence. The pick five is a tough set of races, but there appears to be the chance for a nice score with several wide-open races in the mix.

Race 1: As always, I’m happy to side with the experienced runners in these races for 2-year-old maidens and am going to focus my ticket on two horses: #3 Reckling, who looked ready to go on debut early in the meet, only to bump into one of the better juveniles on the grounds in Theory, and #5 Kid Perfect, a turnback out of a turf route who will be adding Lasix for his second start. I suppose Todd Pletcher’s #2 Monaco should be taken seriously as a $1.3 million 2-year-old purchase debuting on Travers Day, but there really isn’t much to like about him aside from the sales tag and, I guess, the fact that he is an Uncle Mo. I’d rather take backups with #4 Your Secret’s Safe and the other Uncle Mo in the field, #10 Mo Town.

Race 2: #8 Sport is the horse to beat out of his disastrous trip vs. several of these Aug. 6, and I’ll use him, along with Ballagh Rocks, who ran a fine race off the layoff in that same spot, but I am going to make #3 Patterson Cross the focus of my main play. This horse is making just his second career start and is doing so off a 195-day layoff, but he is well bred and ran an excellent race on debut, making up ground into a slow pace after missing the break. He can step forward here at a price.

Race 3: I like the two half-brothers, #4 Tiz Shea D and #6 Its All Relevant, most in this spot (interesting side note: their older brother, the Grade 1-winning sprinter A. P. Indian, also races on today’s card in the Grade 1 Forego). The former may be the more talented of the two, and I think he is going to be better sprinting down the road, but he is returning from a 406-day layoff, and it is difficult to just expect him to be ready. #2 Annual Report was an underrated 2-year-old and can contend here with natural improvement, and #8 Threefiveindia, 2 for 2 sprinting and switching to Chad Brown, are backups.

Race 4: Without a strong opinion in this race, I’m going to use #3 Last Waltz, #8 Stella Rose, and #11 Wedding Dress as my main horses and make #5 Montalcino and #10 Mighty Souper my backups.

Race 5: Tough way to end it, from my perspective, since #3 Manitoulin, #5 Revved Up, and #6 Deeply Undervalued all look like the same horse to me. I don’t know how to separate them, though it seems that Manitoulin is likely to be the best price of the three. The other horse for me is #8 Imperia, whom I have to use on my main ticket despite that fact that he is stretching out three furlongs for this. I don’t love that kind of stretch-out, but he is talented and is finally back to turf after wasting too much time trying to be a dirt horse.