This Fleet is Due to miss Travers Stakes

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - This Fleet is Due, the fourth-place finisher in the Haskell Invitational, popped the splint bone in his left foreleg and will miss Saturday's $1 million Travers Stakes, trainer Bill Mott said Sunday.

Mott said the injury was detected a week after the Haskell, but ``we tried to trainer through it, hoping it wasn't going to amount to anything,'' Mott said. ``But it became inflamed.''

His defection from the race left Pat Day without a mount _ but only briefly. Trainer Rick Violette scooped up Day to ride Free of Love, the runner-up to Scorpion in the Grade 1 Jim Dandy.

This Fleet is Due's defection came a day after Canadian-based Win City declared from the race, dropping the field to eight. That includes Point Given, who was scheduled to work Monday at Del Mar before being put on a plane Tuesday.

At Saratoga on Sunday, five of the seven Travers contenders put in workouts. Scorpion, the Jim Dandy winner breezed four furlongs in 48.67 seconds over the Oklahoma training track, the fastest of 30 works at the distance. Trainer D. Wayne Lukas still does not believe Point Given is coming, so he still insists Gary Stevens will ride his horse.

However, if Stevens is unavailable, it is expected that Mark Guidry will pick up the mount.

Volponi, a 13 1/2-length winner of a preliminary allowance race on July 30,breezed six furlongs in 1:11.07 over the main track, the fastest of five at the distance. That included Travers hopefuls Free Of Love, who went in 1:12.02 and Harrisand, who went in 1:13.46. It is worth noting that Free of Love went at 9:45 a.m., when the track was dry and chewed up.

Dollar Bill breezed five furlongs in 1:00.83. A P Valentine was scheduled to work Monday, weather permitting.