Travers Stakes | Horse Racing Free Tips

Essential Quality Fine After Travers Win

Godolphin's Essential Quality (Tapit) exited his win in Saturday's GI Runhappy Travers S. in fine shape, and, while his next start is up in the air, his ultimate target will be the Nov. 6 GI Breeders' Cup Classic, trainer Brad Cox confirmed Sunday.

“He looked great this morning. He's in good shape,” Cox said. “[Godolphin USA President] Jimmy Bell and I spoke about [his next start] this morning, there's no pressure to make a decision right now. We'll just let the dust settle and enjoy this victory for a little bit. I think that's the right thing to do. We'll make a decision in a week or two weeks. The most important thing is watching him and how he trains.”

Also looking ahead after a Grade I win at Saratoga Saturday are the connections of Gufo (Declaration of War), who captured the GI Resorts World Casino Sword Dancer S. for Otter Bend stables.

“He came out of his race in very good shape and I was very proud of him. He looks very good this morning,” trainer Christophe Clement said.

Clement said the colt would now be pointed towards the Oct. 9 GI Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at Belmont Park.

Trainer Chad Brown reported that GII Ballston Spa S. winner Viadera (GB) (Bated Breath {GB}) will likely make her next start in the Oct. 9 GI First Lady S. at Keeneland.

Also Saturday at Saratoga, Brown saddled Jack Christopher (Munnings), who was tabbed a 'TDN Rising Star' following his 8 3/4-length debut victory.

“I was very pleased,” Brown said of the effort. “The word was out. He had worked well and he ran to his works, which is always a relief for a trainer.”

Brown said Jack Christopher will point to the Oct. 2 GI Champagne S. at Belmont, a one-turn mile offering a “Win and You're In” berth to the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile.

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Asmussen Still Smiling After Travers Day Wins With Yaupon, Jackie’s Warrior

Steve Asmussen was already back on the road scouting for new talent at the Texas yearling sales on Sunday morning, but there still were plenty of bright smiles lighting up the barn of the Hall of Fame trainer in the wake of Saturday's back-to-back wins in the $600,000 Grade 1 Forego by Yaupon and the $500,000 Grade 1 H. Allen Jerkens Memorial by Jackie's Warrior, followed by Midnight Bourbon's runner-up finish in the $1.25 million Runhappy Grade 1 Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

“I was so proud of how our horses ran yesterday. It was a great day of racing,” said Scott Blasi, Asmussen's longtime assistant. “To win two Grade 1s in a row at Saratoga on Travers Day is a great feeling. There are certain days of the year that are incredibly competitive. There's Derby Day, Preakness Day, Belmont Day, Travers Day, Breeders' Cup. With that level of quality racing, it's the best of the best. On those kinds of days to do well, it's a special feeling.”

At this stage of the season, the two fastest sprinters, arguably, in North America, are stabled in this barn.

J. Kirk and Judy Robison's Jackie's Warrior, who won the Grade 1 Hopeful at the Spa and the Grade 1 Champagne at Belmont in 2020, notched the first top-level victory of his sophomore season by beating the highly regarded Life Is Good in the ninth race on the 13-race card. In the eighth race, William and Corrine Heiligbrodt's Yaupon beat Firenze Fire in a race filled with drama.

As the two battled in deep stretch almost stride-for-stride with Yaupon to the inside under Ricardo Santana, Jr., Firenze Fire bared his teeth, turned his head to the left, and tried to savage his rival with no fewer than seven attempts. Afterward, Asmussen said that Firenze Fire was even trying to grab Santana.

“He [Yaupon] came out of it unscathed. No marks or anything. Luckily, Ricardo was able to continue to encourage him, although he was getting pretty close to the inside rail, which I was more worried about than the horse getting bit,” said Blasi. “I think it was a really hard thing for him [Jose Ortiz, up on Firenze Fire] to correct. The thing about it is those guys are riding hard, so they were going forward and it's not like you have the bit in their mouth. They're trying to persevere, and that's a hard to thing to correct when you're in that position. I've seen pictures of horses being savaged, and I've seen horses savage, or try to bite, but I've never seen any horse do it for that long. I've never seen it go on for that long.”

Blasi said even all that commotion could not dim the brilliance of these two sprinters.

“Yaupon is a special horse. It was a great win for him,” said Blasi. “Jackie's Warrior gave another game effort. He's a special talent. The horse he beat [Life is Good] is as well. You saw how they separated themselves from the rest of the field, and that just goes to show you the class and the quality of those two horses. It was a great race. Jackie is so consistent. At one turn, he's back to doing what he wants to do.”

The Heiligbrodts' Mitole won the 2019 Forego, the Breeders' Cup Sprint, the Grade 1 Met Mile at Belmont Park, and a fourth Grade 1 on the way to championship sprinter honors that year for the barn.

Does either Yaupon or Jackie's Warrior resemble Mitole?

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“They're just really fast horses and we've had some quality sprinters like Volatile [winner of the 2020 Grade 1 Vanderbilt at Saratoga] and Mitole. I mean they were great sprinters. These horses all have the same qualities. Both of these guys, you couldn't be any better to be around and to train. Yaupon and Jackie's Warrior are professionals,” said Blasi.

Though Winchell's homebred, Grade 3 winning Midnight Bourbon, didn't give Asmussen his first Travers victory, he finished only a neck behind 2020 Juvenile champion and Grade 1 Belmont Stakes winner Essential Quality.

“It was by far the best race of his career. We were a little bit unlucky to lose but that horse [Essential Quality] is a champion. Once that horse gets by you, he's not going to let anybody pass him, and he proved that time and time again. Hats off to the winner, but our horse is definitely improving. I think with the time that they ran and how they came home in the last quarter, you have to have quality to be able to do that,” Blasi said.

The effort is particularly gratifying considering his last race in the Grade 1 Haskell at Monmouth Park in July. That day he clipped heels with Hot Rod Charlie in the stretch and fell.

“I've got to give the credit to our team here. Everybody worked so hard on that horse after coming out of the Monmouth race. The whole barn did a great job getting him to come back around,” Blasi explained. “He was able to spend time in the round pen and we let him just be a horse up here in Saratoga, which is the great thing about Saratoga. You've got the environment. It's all good.

“I'm proud of how he acted going over to the paddock. We led the pony in front of him, which I think that made a big difference,” he continued. “He was a total professional yesterday. We really are happy with how he's progressing.”

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The Week in Review: Numbers Don’t Lie, But They Can Be Perplexing

If you like to sift through numbers, a few stand out from Saturday's GI Runhappy Travers S. card at Saratoga Race Course.

How about six Grade I stakes, whose winners all earned triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures? They weren't big-figure blowouts either. Five of those ultra-competitive races were decided by a half-length or less at the wire.

Nine winning favorites from 13 races also catches the eye. As does the four-win performance by jockey Joel Rosario.

But the most mind-boggling numeric notation from the summer's biggest day of racing appeared in superscript type for the chart for the Travers itself: The final quarter-mile of the length-of-stretch slugfest between 'TDN Rising Star' Essential Quality (Tapit) and runner-up Midnight Bourbon (Tiznow) was clocked in an astoundingly fast :23.15.

Midnight Bourbon broke fluidly from the rail and immediately claimed the top spot. Yet it was Essential Quality, even after a slight stumble and bump at the break, who really seemed to be in control of the pace while stalking in second. Midnight Bourbon got away with relatively soft back-to-back opening quarters in :24.18 and :24.78–but only because the juvenile champ and GI Belmont S. winner allowed him to.

With Essential Quality on the prowl in ever-dangerous stalk mode under Luis Saez, Midnight Bourbon and Ricardo Santana, Jr. were permitted to milk the third quarter mile of the Travers even slower, to :25.53.

This equated to a six-furlong split of 1:14.49, which theoretically should have afforded tactical advantage to the pacemaking Midnight Bourbon. Yet Essential Quality began to reliably uncoil a half-mile from home, and Saez never appeared rushed or panicked, engaging on the gray favorite's own terms by incrementally eroding Midnight Bourbon's open-length margin through a far-turn fourth quarter clocked in :24.32.

After a 1:38.31 mile, Essential Quality pulled even outside of Midnight Bourbon upon cresting the quarter pole, and they brushed and battled in determined lockstep. Midnight Bourbon drifted slightly–the first sign that Essential Quality's overdriven torque was getting to him–yet Midnight Bourbon admirably remained engaged and briefly re-seized the lead a furlong from the wire.

This is the type of deep-stretch fight that Essential Quality relishes and excels at though, and he purposely powered past Midnight Bourbon within the final 100 yards to prevail by a tenacious neck in 2:01.96 for 10 furlongs.

Of Essential Quality's eight wins, five have now come by margins of a length or less. His 107 Beyer seems about right (two points off his career-best 109 earned in the Belmont S.).

But to throttle up the tempo to :23.15 for the final two furlongs of the Travers borders on outer-worldly. Was the first mile of that race really so relatively untaxing that Essential Quality and Midnight Bourbon could both uncork such a swift stretch kick? (The five Travers also-rans were non-factors throughout the race.)

For perspective, know that no final furlong of the Travers has been run faster in the last three decades (Equibase maintains Travers charts dating only to 1991; TDN would welcome a deeper dive by anyone who has access to a more complete set of data).

Between 1991 and 2015, only two editions of the Travers featured sub-:25 final quarters: In 1993, Sea Hero's off-the-pace score (aided by a too-fast-to-last speed duel) finished up in :24.90. In 2000, Unshaded's length-of-stretch reeling-in of Albert the Great went in :24.93.

Quite a few elite horses won the Travers during that same time frame–Holy Bull, Point Given, Medaglia d'Oro and Bernardini among them. Yet the final quarters of all of their Travers victories ranged between :25.09 and :27.20.

Something shifted in 2016, though. That's when Arrogate burst onto the scene with a 13 1/2-length Travers annihilation. He established a Saratoga track record for 1 1/4 miles in 1:59.36, and even though he had zero competition while drawing clear late in the lane, his final quarter mile was a blistering :23.84.

In 2017, West Coast won the Travers while on the lead throughout, and he too joined the under-:25 club with a :24.37 final-quarter clocking. In 2020, Tiz the Law followed suit with a :24.53 Travers stretch run.

Does Essential Quality's winning run, with its gaudy :23.15 final quarter, suggest the outer limits of a Travers trend that has been in the making? And what does it mean when only two horses in a quarter-century manage sub-:25 final quarters in the Travers, then all of a sudden, within a six year span, four horses accomplish that feat?

Prior to Arrogate, General Assembly owned the Spa track record for 10 furlongs. When he established that mark in the 1979 Travers, the New York Times made it a point to report that “His last quarter, when he increased his lead from four lengths to the final 15, was particularly impressing. He ran it in :24 1/5 seconds.”

Although it can be dicey to broaden the scope of comparison away from Saratoga and the Travers, it has to be stated that the ultimate benchmark for final quarter-mile proficiency in a 10-furlong dirt race is Secretariat's 1973 GI Kentucky Derby. He established a 1:59 2/5 track record that still stands, punctuating a tour-de-force stretch bid with a :23 1/5 final quarter (back when fifth-of-a-second timing was the standard).

So did Essential Quality (and Midnight Bourbon, for that matter) unleash performances in the Travers that truly deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Secretariat's lofty standard?

“Time will tell,” could be a possible answer to that question. But raw clockings aren't always as straightforward as they seem when trying to understand the overall intricacies of any given race.

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Essential Quality Earns 107 Beyer Speed Figure In Travers Win, BC Classic Ultimate Goal

Godolphin homebred Essential Quality continued to display his excellence with a superb performance in Saturday's $1.25 million Grade 1 Runhappy Travers at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., picking up a fourth Grade 1 triumph.

Essential Quality, traveling in second position under meet-leading rider Luis Saez, was 3 ½ lengths off pacesetter Midnight Bourbon down the backstretch before inching his way closer to the front nearing the far turn. The pair engaged in a dramatic stretch battle, with the 2020 Champion 2-Year-Old coming out on the winning end by a neck and recording a 107 Beyer Speed Figure.

Winning dramatic stretch duels in prestigious races are nothing new for Essential Quality, who won the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes presented by NYRA Bets on June 5 after battling with Hot Rod Charlie in the stretch. He arrived at the Runhappy Travers off a half-length win in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy on July 30 at the Spa, fending off an inside rally from Keepmeinmind, who was fourth in the Travers.

Essential Quality became the first Champion 2-Year-Old to notch a Travers win since Street Sense in 2007 and joined Tiz the Law [2020], Summer Bird [2009], Birdstone [2004], Point Given [2001], Lemon Drop Kid [1999], and Thunder Gulch [1995] as horses to sweep the Belmont Stakes-Travers double. Additionally, he became the first horse since Arts and Letters in 1969 to win the Belmont, Jim Dandy, and Travers.

Trainer Brad Cox said the $6 million Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Classic is the ultimate goal but has not yet decided whether Essential Quality will race once beforehand.

“He looked great this morning. He's in good shape,” Cox said. “[Godolphin USA President] Jimmy Bell and I spoke about that this morning, there's no pressure to make a decision right now. We'll just let the dust settle and enjoy this victory for a little bit. I think that's the right thing to do. We'll make a decision in a week or two weeks. The most important thing is watching him and how he trains.”

Through eight victories in nine lifetime starts, Essential Quality has displayed various tactics, having won from just off the pace in the Grade 1 Breeders' Futurity and the Grade 2 Blue Grass at Keeneland, as well as from far back in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile, where he made up nine lengths to secure a victory.

“He's a versatile horse,” Cox said. “He seems to show up regardless of the pace. He's shown that he knows how to negotiate a trip and accept what's thrown his way. He knows how to overcome things.”

Cox spoke volumes of this year's 3-year-old crop and said it's a testament to Essential Quality's accomplishments.

“It's very, very good, and that's not just because we have two very good ones in Essential Quality and [Grade 1 Haskell Invitational winner] Mandaloun,” Cox said. “Horses like Hot Rod Charlie, Midnight Bourbon, Jackie's Warrior, and Keepmeinmind were all good horses that played a role as 2-year-olds last year and have been able to continue on at 3. Jackie's Warrior and Essential Quality were both dual Grade 1 winners at two and three. It means a lot. Hopefully, we can keep marching forward and on to the Breeders' Cup.”

Cox has been more involved in the Spa meet this season than he has in years past, which has paid dividends to the Louisville-born conditioner. Three weeks ago, Cox saddled Knicks Go to a victory in the Grade 1 Whitney.

“I've kind of been in and out of Saratoga in years past, but this year I've been here a good bit and it's really grown on me,” Cox said. “Moving forward, I'd like to spend all of my summers here. Being here and doing well in big races, that makes you enjoy it. It's a special place. Between the Travers and the Whitney, these are great accomplishments. It's a lot of teamwork and we have a great team.

“I can see myself spending more time here in years to come,” Cox added. “It's a great place, the whole town is all about racing. It's a special place for sure.”

Essential Quality is out of the multiple-stakes placed Elusive Quality mare Delightful Quality. He is a direct descendant of the influential broodmare La Troienne.

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Cox potentially holds a strong hand for the Breeders' Cup Classic with Essential Quality and Knicks Go, who breezed for the first time since his Whitney triumph on Friday morning. The four-time Grade 1-winning son of Paynter went an easy half-mile in :49.15 over the Oklahoma training track.

Knicks Go will target the $400,000 Grade 3 Lukas Classic on October 2 at Churchill Downs as his final prep for the Breeders' Cup Classic.

“It was an incredible move and I was proud of him,” Cox said. “I didn't ask him to do much, but he did it the right way. We'll keep him here until the first of September and go from there.”

Cox saddled Ten Strike Racing's Whittington Park, a New York homebred, to a maiden special weight victory on Saturday at second asking. Third in his debut on August 1 at Saratoga, the son of Midnight Lute led the 6 ½-furlong race at every point of call, winning by 7 ½ lengths under Manny Franco. He registered a 69 Beyer for the win.

“We've always liked him. I had the opportunity to see him in Florida in March and he had a good physical,” Cox said. “We didn't feel that we had him quite ready to win first time, but he really got something out of it. We added the blinkers and had a couple of good moves since.”

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