Travers: Golden Tempo must overcome 12-week layoff against star-studded cast
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – One doesn’t have to go back too far to find the last time a horse won the Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes, and Travers Stakes. Sovereignty accomplished the feat just last year.
Before that, however, it hadn’t been done in 30 years since Thunder Gulch in 1995.
Saturday, in the 157th running of the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers, Golden Tempo will attempt to do what those two champions accomplished. Only his challenge is a bit more imposing.
In addition to a formidable group of competitors, Golden Tempo – unlike Sovereignty and Thunder Gulch – will be trying to win the Travers off a 12-week layoff, or since he won the Belmont Stakes at 1 1/4 miles over this same Saratoga track. Arcangelo, in 2023, won the Travers having not run in the 11 weeks since he won the Belmont when it was run at 1 1/2 miles.
An illness in late June prevented Golden Tempo from a planned start in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy on Aug. 1, but his six workouts since, five of them at Saratoga, have lessened the layoff concern for trainer Cherie DeVaux.
“I think it’s a factor, but he seems pretty fit,” said DeVaux, who trains Golden Tempo for the Phipps Stable and St. Elias Stable. “Training doesn’t replace a race, especially for a horse that goes a route of ground like he does, but he didn’t really lose a whole lot of fitness. It was about 10 days of no training. In their world it’s not that big of a deal.”
Some of the nine rivals Golden Tempo faces in the 1 1/4-mile Travers are familiar – Renegade, Ocelli, and Emerging Market. Some, including Preakness winner Napoleon Solo, Tampa Bay Derby winner The Puma, Curlin Stakes winner Sea Strike, and Haskell winner Baby Vino, are new opponents for Golden Tempo.
“I’ve always said that this will be interesting because even the ones he has run against, they do a lot of maturing from the spring to the summer as 3-year-olds,” DeVaux said. “Some horses are definitely on that trajectory. I don’t take it for granted that just because we’ve beaten Renegade twice, that’s probably not the same Renegade that he is at this point of the season.”
Golden Tempo, who breaks from post 9, will be ridden by Jose Ortiz, who is leading all riders at the meet with 64 wins but is 0 for 10 in the Travers.
Renegade came within a neck of Golden Tempo in the Kentucky Derby with a difficult trip. According to trainer Todd Pletcher, Renegade hadn’t quite refilled the tank when he ran in the Belmont Stakes and finished a flat third. Renegade bounced back with a strong performance in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy and appears to have come out of that race better than he did the Belmont.
“He’s doing as well as he could possibly be doing,” said Pletcher, who trains Renegade for Mike Repole and Robert and Lawana Low. “He’s had a really good 3 1/2 weeks since the Jim Dandy, everything’s gone according to plan. He’s done well physically, he’s actually put on a little weight since the Jim Dandy.”
With Irad Ortiz Jr. nursing an injured foot, Tyler Gaffalione rides the late-running Renegade for the first time.
“What Irad emphasized is letting the horse be himself,” Pletcher said. “He felt like in the Belmont he maybe asked him to stay a little closer than he kind of wanted to and the horse wanted to be and he thought that maybe diminished his late kick a little bit.
“It’s not a situation where we’re going to take him back, we’re just going to let him be comfortable where he wants to be. If that means they go a little slower and he’s laying a little closer then that’s fine.”
Napoleon Solo, the Preakness winner, most likely will be the pace of the race. Though he stalked in the Preakness, there doesn’t appear to be much speed in the Travers.
Napoleon Solo set the pace in the Haskell but was kept six wide by jockey Paco Lopez down the backstretch over a sloppy Monmouth track. He and Baby Vino brushed a couple of times in the stretch, with Baby Vino prevailing by a half-length.
Lopez has been replaced on Napoleon Solo by John Velazquez, a three-time Travers winner, and Napoleon Solo figures to be in front early on.
“Look, we’re not going to take anything away from him,” trainer Chad Summers said. “The two favorites are going to be 15 lengths behind us, why are we going to let them be 10 lengths behind us? I don’t think there’s any secret, if he breaks he’s going to be in front.”
Napoleon Solo is the only member of his generation who is a Grade 1 winner at both 2 – he won the Champagne – and 3. The 1 1/4 miles may be a question, but even though he works fast he gallops out far and with good energy.
“It’s not like he breezes well and then he’s done,” Summers said.
Leading Change, who won the Indiana Derby in front-running fashion, is drawn inside of Napoleon Solo and is likely to be sent away from the gate by Manny Franco.
Silent Tactic, second to Renegade in the Arkansas Derby, came off a four-month layoff and showed good speed to be close to the pace in the Jim Dandy while finishing third. He breaks from the outside post in this 10-horse field under Luis Saez.
Chad Brown is winless with 18 starters in 11 runnings of the Travers. Saturday, he sends out Sea Strike and Emerging Market. Sea Strike is coming off a dominant victory in the Curlin Stakes. Brown has won the Curlin seven times, but five of the previous six that he’s run back in the Travers have finished no better than sixth.
“This horse works better than any horse I’ve ever run in the Travers and he’s got more positional speed than they had,” Brown said. “This is a lightly raced but super high-quality horse, and he’s freaky good. I have zero reservations about entering this horse in the race.”
Flavien Prat rides Sea Strike. Prat had ridden Emerging Market in all five of his previous starts, including a victory in the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby and in the Kentucky Derby (10th) and Belmont Stakes (5th), races in which he lost a front shoe. Ricardo Santana Jr. now rides Emerging Market.
Babv Vino, trained by Lindsay Schultz, brings a three-race winning streak into the Travers. Lopez, who rode him to a 10 3/4-length victory in the Pegasus, will be aboard Saturday.
“He can be tactical,” Schultz said. “I can see him sitting right in behind the speed and being able to make that jump on the closers.”
The Puma, trained by Gustavo Delgado, was competitive with the perceived top 3-year-olds of the winter and early spring when he beat the likes of Further Ado in the Grade 3 Tampa Bay Derby and came within a nose of Commandment in the Grade 1 Florida Derby. The Puma missed the Kentucky Derby with a hock injury and, in his only start since, finished fourth in the Haskell, a race run over a sloppy track. He has been training in Saratoga for six weeks.
The Puma will be ridden by Javier Castellano, who recorded his 6,000th career win Wednesday and has won the Travers a record seven times.
Ocelli remains a maiden after 10 starts, but he did finish third in the Kentucky Derby and second in the Ohio Derby. With his regular rider Gaffalione committed to Renegade, Edgard Zayas picks up the mount for trainer Whit Beckman.
The Travers goes as race 13 on a 14-race card that begins at 11:05 a.m. and includes four other Grade 1 stakes – the Allen Jerkens, Forego, Personal Ensign, and Ballerina – as well as the Grade 2 Lake Placid. The Travers will be broadcast on Fox during a two-hour broadcast from 5 to 7 p.m. Eastern.
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