SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. (AP) - Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver leads a field of 11 3-year-olds running in the $1 million Travers Stakes on Saturday, with the race likely to sort out a muddled division.
Minus Preakness and Haskell Invitation winner Lookin' at Lucky, widely considered the nation's leading 3-year-old male, the 141st edition of the Grade 1 Travers brings together a group of late-developing potential contenders for the division championship and one, Super Saver, attempting to regain diminished stature.
The field for the wide-open race includes First Dude, runner-up in the Preakness and third in the Belmont Stakes and Haskell; Kentucky Derby runner-up Ice Box; and Fly Down, second in the Belmont.
The last three winners of the Kentucky Derby to run in the Travers - Street Sense (2007), Thunder Gulch (1995) and Sea Hero (1993) - have won the ``Midsummer Derby.'' It's a streak Super Saver's trainer, Todd Pletcher, would like to continue.
``Some are on a win streak, and others are trying to get back on course, like Super Saver,'' Pletcher said. ``Super Saver is capable of doing anything. He's won on the lead and he settled pretty well off the pace in the Derby so I think it's more about how fast they're going and where (jockey Calvin Borel) feels comfortable tucking him in.''
While Super Saver has been well short of his Derby form in two subsequent races, finishing eighth in the Preakness and fourth in the Haskell Invitational, A Little Warm has emerged as the division's rising star with a pair of impressive wins, including the Jim Dandy Stakes early in the Saratoga meeting. The Tony Dutrow-trained colt, which will be ridden by John Velazquez, is the morning-line favorite.
A Little Warm's spring campaign aimed at the Triple Crown was interrupted by minor injury, causing Dutrow to reassess how to salvage the season.
``We gathered up our whole crew, talked about these opportunities and we all made the commitment to each other and to the horses that this could possibly be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and that we were all going to focus and try our very, very best to accomplish the goal,'' he said. ``We still have a lot of work to do, but we're very proud and we're really, really enjoying this.''
Afleet Express, third in the Jim Dandy and another late-developing 3-year-old absent from the Triple Crown series, also has emerged as a potential force.
He initially impressed trainer Jimmy Jerkens in a seven-furlong open allowance race at Belmont Park in May.
``Until he won that race, I really wasn't thinking of anything past that,'' Jerkens said. ``It looked like he's the real deal.''
Afleet Express won the Pegasus Stakes at Monmouth Park and finished third in the Jim Dandy, a better-than-it-looked effort that convinced Jerkens that the Travers was the next logical step. Jerkens said he changed his mind on the Travers in the final stages of the Jim Dandy.
``I wasn't happy until the last sixteenth of a mile,'' Jerkens said. ``I didn't know what was going on around that turn, but he really spit the bridle out and quit running and dropped back a few spots. To be able to come back on like he did, usually when horses do that they don't get it back together again, but he did.''
Javier Castellano will ride Afleet Express, who will break from the seven post with A Little Warm in the five post and Super Saver at the extreme outside.
Other starters, in post position order: Miner's Reserve (David Cohen), Trappe Shot (Alan Garcia), Admiral Alex (Kent Desormeaux), First Dude (Ramon Dominguez), Ice Box (Julien Leparoux), Fly Down (Jose Lezcano), Friend or Foe (Rajiv Maragh) and Afleet Again (Cornelio Velasquez).
