Gainesway Stable and Whisper Hill Farm's Tapit Trice will target the $1.25-million Travers on August 26 at Saratoga, trainer Todd Pletcher said.
Tapit Trice was a last-out fifth in the TVG.com Haskell (G1) on July 22 at Monmouth Park. The gray Tapit colt raced off the pace and lacked a crucial late kick, finishing 8 3/4 lengths behind the victorious Geaux Rocket Ride.
A 2023 alumnus of the Triple Crown trail, Tapit Trice was third in the Belmont Stakes (G1) five weeks following a distant seventh in the Kentucky Derby (G1). Over the spring, he captured the Tampa Bay Derby (G2) and Blue Grass (G1) at Keeneland.
“Everything went wrong,” Pletcher said of his Haskell effort. “He didn't get away well. He got bottled up behind horses in a lot of traffic. It was very similar to the Derby. He was in an impossible spot to run from, especially on a track like that.”
Bred in Kentucky by Gainesway Thoroughbreds, Tapit Trice is out of the multiple graded stakes-placed mare Danzatrice, whose Pletcher-trained sire, Dunkirk, finished second in the 2009 Belmont Stakes. He was bought by Mandy Pope's Whisper Hill for $1.3 million at the 2021 Keeneland September Yearling Sale.
The post Pletcher Looks To Travers For Former Classics Starter Tapit Trice appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
