Weekend Warrior for Saturday, Aug. 27: Picks for Travers, King's Bishop, Ballerina

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Travers Day at Saratoga is special, and Saturday’s Travers card is as loaded as one would hope it to be to support the Grade 1, $1.25 million centerpiece of the nation’s biggest race meet. There are five other Grade 1 events on the card, as well as a Grade 2 race marking the return of Lady Eli.

Travers Stakes

Many of the 14 entrants in this wide-open Travers are closely matched, as evidenced by the fact that there isn’t much of a spread Beyer Speed Figure-wise between the top contenders. That said, in the end, your view of this Travers as a betting race depends entirely on your opinion of the favorite, Exaggerator.

Exaggerator has perhaps the best case to be this year’s champion 3-year-old male, with victories in the Preakness, Haskell, and Santa Anita Derby and a second in the Kentucky Derby. Yet as accomplished as Exaggerator is, he also might be the most polarizing horse of 2016. And that is because some handicappers, this one included, consider him to be a creation of extremely favorable pace setups and wet racing surfaces.

Exaggerator got hot and contested pace setups that played perfectly to his closing style in all of his wins this year and in the Kentucky Derby, too. That’s fine. He is likely to get another favorable pace setup Saturday. However, he also caught sloppy tracks in all of his big scores this year, and he caught a wet surface in the Derby as well.

People forget, but while the official track condition for the Derby was “fast,” there was a big storm just prior to the race, leaving standing water in many spots on the racing surface. But unless the weather forecast is terribly wrong, Exaggerator will not get the wet track he so relishes on Saturday, and that makes him a bet-against for me.

I want closers in this Travers, and I narrowed my preferences down to Gift Box and Creator. Gift Box was only second-best last time in the Curlin Stakes to barnmate Connect, the Travers’s second choice on the morning line. In retrospect, I think the Curlin was a stone-cold prep for Gift Box, and the pace scenario he’ll see Saturday is more to his favor than the one he saw in the Curlin. But Gift Box has not yet won going two turns. In fact, he gave ground late in both of his two-turn outings. And that was the deciding factor in my going with Creator.

Creator was my pick in the Belmont Stakes, and he was good to me, winning at 16-1. Frankly, Creator did not run well when sixth of six in the Jim Dandy Stakes in his one start since then, but there were extenuating circumstances beyond the obvious consideration that this race, not the Jim Dandy, was his summer goal.

The pace in the Jim Dandy was slow and decidedly against Creator’s deep-closing style, and he gets a far better pace setup this time. Moreover, Creator’s works since the Jim Dandy have been more purposeful, and I’m expecting a peak effort now. Up in time!

King’s Bishop Stakes

I’m a big fan of Drefong, and I feel confident that he’s good enough to win this. But I don’t like his position Saturday being outside of everyone, including all the other pace players. Besides, if I didn’t go with Economic Model, I’d have to turn in my trip-handicapper card.

Economic Model finished second in the Dwyer Stakes most recently, but his effort was vastly better than it looks on paper. Economic Model raced in the 2 path on the far turn, on the rail into the stretch, and in the 2 path through the stretch on a day when being anywhere near the inside was death. It is to Economic Model’s credit that he finished as well as he did, and I like the addition of blinkers Saturday, as well as having trainer Chad Brown in his corner.

Ballerina Stakes

Wavell Avenue and Haveyougoneaway were sharp in winning stakes earlier in the Saratoga meet, and Carina Mia, though a 3-year-old meeting older, is very talented. But I want Sheer Drama in this spot.

Sheer Drama cuts back to the distance at which she won the Madison Stakes three starts back in her first start this year, comes into this suitably fresh, and doesn’t have to be that far back early.