A Travers From Afar is Still Worth the Wait

The Travers Stakes (G1) is Aug. 23, a grade 1 race if there ever was one. In fact, the Travers is one of fewer than a dozen original grade 1 events—the ratings began in 1973—that are still offered at the same place, at the same distance, and under the same conditions today as they were at the dawn of the second Nixon Administration. "I like a man that stays put," said the replicant Roy Batty in Blade Runner. And I like a race that's been won by so many Hall of Famers that I lost count at 15 when I'd only reached Native Dancer, who won a five-horse Travers in 1953 by 5 1/2 lengths. You don't need to be a great horse to win the Travers (hello Piano Jim, Gold Foam), but you'd better be ready to run through fire, because A-games only need apply. Besides, every schoolchild is taught the lessons of Jim Dandy and Keen Ice—topplers of giants—that all glory is fleeting, especially at a mile and a quarter in August. Full disclosure: This reporter has never seen a Travers in the flesh. Seems like August always was tied up in something else, primarily Del Mar, which is a poor excuse unless you find sand, sun, and sea particularly appealing. I truly wish I'd been in the crowd to gasp at the sight of Runaway Groom beating the three Triple Crown race winners in 1982, or the day a decade later when New York's favorite son, Thunder Rumble, brought the house down beating Devil His Due. There is no regret, though, about missing the 1978 Travers debacle, because for sure there would have been a rhubarb that night at The Parting Glass (well, whatever was its equivalent as it launched three years later) over the gang assault on noble Affirmed, my second-favorite racehorse, by a phalanx of local riders. Yeah, Laffit Pincay Jr. blew his cool. Wouldn't you? Anyway, at the time, I was meandering through Northern Europe on an aimless pilgrimage. When the '78 Travers was being run, I probably was watching Swedes drink themselves silly in a railway station tavern somewhere around Ostersund, or maybe getting a face full of sea air on the Kattegat crossing to Denmark. It's hazy. Damascus is my all-time favorite racehorse, and I learned of his 22-length victory (not a typo) in the 1967 Travers by reading about it in the Plentywood Herald, the local news rag in the northeastern Montana town where my father was born. We were there on a summer trip. It was not my idea of a summer trip. But you know who else missed the Travers? Secretariat missed the Travers. Yep, the greatest 3-year-old of all-time slagged off the 1973 Midsummer Derby after losing the Whitney Stakes (G2) earlier in the meet. Big Red was sick after that, so give him a break, and he came roaring back in his next race with a world record 1 1/8 miles in the first running of the Marlboro Cup Handicap. Ron Turcotte—Secretariat's rider, who died Aug. 22—managed to pick up a last-minute mount in the '73 Travers courtesy of trainer Doug Davis, who entered Monmouth Invitational Handicap (G1) runner-up Annihilate 'Em, a son of the Cal-bred stallion Hempen. Annihilate 'Em was just shy of 26-1 in the field of eight, the next-highest price being 8-1, so of course Angel Cordero, Eddie Belmonte, Jorge Velasquez, and the rest of Saratoga's finest let Turcotte cruise along on a sweet lead until it was too late to do anything about it. He won by a length and a quarter. That was on a Saturday, the 18th of August. Out at Del Mar, we watched a televised Travers with amusement, then turned our attention to the Cabrillo Handicap, which was won by the ungentlemanly Canadian champion, Kennedy Road. Some guy named Shoemaker rated the tough customer with barely a string to cash for Charlie Whittingham. The size of fields in major stakes has been getting a lot of play lately. Hands have been wringing far and wide. Only four were entered to face Kentucky Derby (G1) and Belmont Stakes (G1) winner Sovereignty Saturday. Four fillies were mustered for the Yorkshire Oaks (G1) earlier this week. This summer's Saratoga Special Stakes (G2) featured only four 2-year-olds, while the Best Pal Stakes (G3) lured five, from just two stables. And did anyone notice a recent group 3 event run at Deauville that brought out the international heavyweight Goliath (GER)? He was beaten narrowly by one of his three opponents. Folks can complain and complain and complain (thank you, Bob Roberts), but they are failing to do the math. The 2022 United States Thoroughbred foal crop of 17,146, from which Sovereignty and Journalism sprung, was the smallest since 1963, the year I watched Don Drysdale shut out the Yankees 1-0 in Game 3 of the World Series (ahh, sweet memories). The pyramid of quality is undefeated. No matter how selective the breeding, no matter how many sons and daughters of Into Mischief are produced, there forever will be only a certain percentage of a given sample that rise to the top. Just be thankful that Travers Day 2025 is predicted to be mostly sunny, and not a day like Aug. 16, 1947, when New York Times correspondent James Roach reported on rain that "bucketed down on this theatre of operations" the night before, rendering the track to "one big batch of mud." Roach added: "It was a day that made jockeys wonder why they ever had become mixed up in such a business." Young Peter beat favored Phalanx by a nose in a field of three. 'World Records' "World record" is nose candy for headline writers and excitable scribes. The blazing Doncho got the latest time grab when he whisked 5 1/2 furlongs on the Ellis Park turf in :59.75 Aug. 8. The Beyer guys were quick to cold-water the celebration with a 96 figure, which still is not too shabby. But to those of us who still respect the passage of time, under any conditions, it was a dizzy display. Other world records should be easier to calibrate, like how much or how many, without undue context. Much was made of the latest milestone collected by 71-year-old Perry Ouzts, the Old Man River of racing who just keeps rolling along. When Ouzts threw a leg over mount number 53,579 at Belterra Park July 26, he topped the total accrued by Russell Baze by the end of his Hall of Fame career. A few outlets referred to the number as a world record, but the majority got it right as a North American mark. However, since there is more to the world than North America, racing fans are justified in wondering what jockey might lead the global pack in the number of times they placed their mortality on the line in the heat of pari-mutuel battle. The best bet is Jorge Ricardo, the Brazilian machine, who turns 64 Sept. 30. Ricardo already leads the planet in wins at 13,352, compared with 7,521 for Ouzts. Perry won a race at Belterra as this sentence was being written Friday afternoon. Ricardo, on the other hand, is in the midst of a quiet South American winter season and last scored Aug. 9 at Hipódromo de Cidade Jardim in São Paulo, Brazil. Unfortunately, Ricardo's total mounts are hard to find. Carlos Taboas Boente, who maintains the website paginadeturf.wordpress.com, relayed a note from Ricardo himself. "He told me he believes he has run between 60,000 and 70,000 races," Boente reported. That's good enough for me.