1 analyst sees 1 big threat to Thorpedo Anna in Travers
Most of the expected starters for next Saturday’s Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers Stakes had yet to put in their last timed workouts heading into this weekend.
Thorpedo Anna, for instance, got in her final breeze Saturday morning for trainer Kenny McPeek. Even before that, a leading form and workout analyst said her bid to become the first filly in 109 years to win Saratoga’s mid-summer derby is more about the seven colts who are likely to line up against her.
Travers works: Thorpedo Anna is 1 of 6 on Saturday tab.
“It all comes down to the talent level of the boys,” Bruno De Julio, a 36-year trackside veteran who runs the Racing with Bruno website, said Friday. “So far these 3-year-olds have not been shown to be world beaters.”
The Travers will be without Thorpedo Anna’s Kentucky Derby-winning stablemate Mystik Dan. It also will not have Preakness victor Seize the Grey, who is being pointed to next month’s Pennsylvania Derby (G1).
However, it will have Dornoch. Where Thorpedo Anna is by acclamation the country’s best 3-year-old filly, the Belmont Stakes and Haskell (G1) winner trained by Danny Gargan is the top 3-year-old male. Dornoch also is the one colt De Julio saw Friday as the top threat to spoil McPeek’s plans for a think-pink celebration next Saturday evening.
“There’s the horse that I think can beat Anna, because he waits on horses,” De Julio said. “He waits for horses to come and get him, and he rebreaks on them and gets it done. Sometimes what you need in a horse like Dornoch is somebody to blow right by him. I don’t think Anna is going to blow right by him.”
Both horses have been comfortable on or near the early lead. In his five wins, Dornoch has not been farther than a half-length off the pace shown in his past performances. During her current four-race winning streak spanning the Fantasy (G2), the Kentucky Oaks (G1), the Acorn (G1) and the Coaching Club American Oaks (G1), all against 3-year-old fillies, Thorpedo Anna has not had to make up more than two lengths at any call.
In that most recent 1 1/8-mile race July 20, Anna hopped at the start and spotted the field about 1 1/2 lengths coming out of the gate. Facing only three rivals, the daughter of Fast Anna ridden as usual by Brian Hernandez Jr. still won by 4 1/2 lengths.
Not afraid to shoot from the hip with his points of view, De Julio was not wowed by that performance.
“She still had to work harder than I thought she should have,” he said. “A bad start is a product of her sharpness. She wasn’t very sharp, yet she beat a bad field. She’s going to have to really improve.”
Among the other colts who are probable starters in next Saturday’s 1 1/4-mile race, De Julio wondered whether Fierceness “has a wind problem, because he drifted in and out” winning the Jim Dandy (G2). He said Sierra Leone, who was second as the 4-5 favorite in that race, “has got some quirks and got some issues and is just slow.” He said Batten Down, Corporate Power, Honor Marie and Unmatched Wisdom are like “all the Cinderella stepsisters that want to go to the ball who show up at the last minute.”
De Julio suggested the Travers is such an attractive target of a race that some trainers might intensify their preparation too much.
“A lot of the guys start pushing these horses, and they start training harder and harder and harder and harder,” he said. “The smart guy is going to be the one who says, ‘I’ve got a horse who’s fit. Why do I have to shove them?’ That sometimes can get the horses going another way backward.”
De Julio, however, said any handicapping of the Travers right now is incomplete at best.
“After the last of the weekend works,” he said, “you’ll get a better picture.”
Two would-be Travers entrants breezed Friday at Saratoga. Corporate Power went a half-mile in 47.44 seconds on the Oklahoma dirt track, the fastest of 43 workouts over that distance. Unmatched Wisdom went five furlongs in 1:00.41 on the main track, the third fastest of six such breezes.