Mystik Dan unlikely for Travers; has been relocated to Keeneland
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - It is looking increasingly less likely that Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan will make the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers Stakes here on Aug. 24.
Trainer Kenny McPeek said Friday that he has sent Mystik Dan from Saratoga to Keeneland to train for the foreseeable future.
“I decided to get him back to the team down below, regular groom, regular rider,” McPeek said. “We’re not in a hurry to bring him back. I’m not going to press to make the Travers, let that come to us.”
Mystik Dan ran in all three Triple Crown races, winning the Kentucky Derby, finishing second in the Preakness, and eighth in the Belmont Stakes, a race from which he emerged with mucus in his lungs. Mystik Dan, who raced six times in the first six months of the year, has basically just been in light training since the Belmont Stakes.
Asked what would have to happen for Mystik Dan to make the Travers, McPeek said, “We’d have to have a flawless pattern to get him back. I’m not in any hurry. The hard part about the Travers is it’s a mile and a quarter without a [prep] race. I almost did it with Repent years back.”
In 2002, McPeek sent out Repent to a second-place finish, a half-length behind Medaglia d’Oro, in the Travers Stakes. Repent had not run since April when he finished second in the Illinois Derby to War Emblem, who would go on to win the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.
McPeek said the Grade 1, $1 million Pennsylvania Derby, at 1 1/8 miles at Parx, on Sept. 21, might be a more attractive race for Mystik Dan’s next race.
The likely defection of Mystik Dan from the Travers could open the door for the top filly Thorpedo Anna to run in that race. Winner of the Kentucky Oaks and Acorn, Thorpedo Anna is scheduled to maker her next start in the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks here next Saturday.
“It’s possible,” McPeek said when asked about her for the Travers.
Meanwhile, McPeek plans to run Ohio Derby runner-up Gould’s Gold in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy on July 27 and the recent allowance winner Elephant’s Ear in Friday’s Curlin Stakes.
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