Stay Thirsty Steals the Show in Travers
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With a powerful performance that catapulted him to the head the 3-year-old division, Stay Thirsty
Leaving from post position 9 as the 5-2 favorite, Stay Thirsty found himself on the lead between horses as the field of 10 barreled toward the first turn and through an opening quarter in 23.45 seconds. Eased back by Javier Castellano into second as Preakness winner Shackleford took over through a half in 47.63 and three-quarters in 1:11.91, Stay Thirsty ranged up to challenge for the lead on the far turn and spun into the stretch with a lead that was never seriously threatened.
"He gave me a little bit of a hard time for the first part of the race," said Castellano, who won the Travers last year with Afleet Express and in 2006 with Stay Thirsty's sire, Bernardini. "He settled down and I was able to put him outside. I think that was the key to winning the race. I had a lot of horse. At some point, he was going to respond to me. He ran huge today. He showed he's the best 3-year-old in the country, and I'm so happy with the way he did it."
Stay Thirsty's winning time for the 1 ¼ miles was 2:03.03 as he vanquished a field that included not only the Preakness winner, who finished eighth, but Belmont Stakes winner Ruler On Ice, who was fourth, and Grade 1 Haskell Invitational winner Coil, the second choice who was last in the field of 10.
Coming on the heels of his four-length domination of the Grade 2 Jim Dandy at the Spa on July 30, Stay Thirsty put himself atop a division that has been without a clear leader since Kentucky Derby winner and Preakness runner-up Animal Kingdom was sidelined following his sixth-place finish in the Belmont Stakes.
"Stay Thirsty separates himself from every other 3-year-old by far right now," said winning owner Mike Repole, who 32 minutes earlier had his 2010 2-year-old champion Uncle Mo nosed out at the wire by Caleb's Posse in the Grade 1 Foxwoods King's Bishop. "He should have won the Belmont, but he didn't. He recovered in the Jim Dandy. There's no doubt in my mind he's the best 3-year-old in the country. The other three horses you could say were the best 3-year-olds in the country were in this race."
Stay Thirsty returned $6.80 for a $2 win bet to his backers in the crowd of 43,050, and earned $600,000 to boost his bankroll to $1.4 million. Winner of the Grade 3 Gotham at Aqueduct Racetrack in his 2011 debut, Stay Thirsty finished seventh in the Grade 1 Florida Derby and 12th in the Kentucky Derby prior to his second-place finish in the Belmont on June 11.
"To me, this horse ran a really, really huge race," said winning trainer Todd Pletcher. "He ran from the gate to the wire, a mile and a quarter, every step of the way. Nothing was handed to him at any point. He was in between horses, under pressure, the whole way and he just kept finding more. To me this was a really, really courageous effort."
Rattlesnake Bridge, who was fourth in the Grade 2 Jerome in his only other graded stakes start, was 1 ½ lengths clear of 32-1 shot J W Blue.
"We ran great," said Kiaran McLaughlin, trainer of the runner-up. "We were pointing toward this race, we ran our race, and we were second-best."
Completing the order of finish behind J W Blue were Ruler On Ice, Malibu Glow, Moonshine Mullin, Bowman's Causeway, Shackleford, Raison d'Etat and Coil.
"I think when he broke, he should have gone," said Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, who trains Coil. "When I saw him back there...he's still green, we'll learn more about him."
While Castellano became the first jockey since Eddie Maple in 1980-81 to win back-to-back editions of the "Mid-Summer Derby," Stay Thirsty became the ninth horse to complete the Jim Dandy-Travers double. Along with Bernardini, the others to win both were Arts and Letters (1969), Willow Hour (1981), Carr de Naskra (1984), Thunder Rumble (1992), Medaglia d'Oro (2002), Flower Alley (2005) and Street Sense (2007).
Since the advent of naming divisional championships in 1936, 18 Travers winners have been named champion 3-year-old male, most recently Summer Bird, who also won the Belmont and the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup in 2009.
The 1 ¼ mile Jockey Club Gold Cup on October 1 will likely be the next start for Stay Thirsty as he looks to wrap up the season in the Grade 1, $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic at Churchill Downs on November 5.
"That's the plan that we had coming into this," said Pletcher. "We need to see how he comes out of the race, and make sure that we want to have a start between now and the Breeders' Cup Classic. But he's in such a good rhythm right now and he's doing so well that if he continues to progress the way he is, I think the Jockey Club is what fits."
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