Travers 2018 contender Bravazo 'going in the right direction'

Calumet Farm's Bravazo is "on target" for next Saturday's Grade 1 Travers Stakes and will turn in his final serious move for the 1 ¼-mile race on Sunday morning, Hall of Fame trainer Wayne Lukas reported. It will be his fifth breeze at the Spa, where he has been training since early July.

"I think he's gotten stronger, I really do," Lukas said of Bravazo, runner-up to likely Travers favorite Good Magic in the Grade 1 Haskell on July 30 at Monmouth Park. "I think he's going in the right direction. He's gotten stronger and he's really focused. I think he's going to run his best race, I really do. Whether it's good enough, I don't know, but I think he's going to run his best race."

Bravazo, a strong second in the Preakness, shares the distinction as being the only other horse to start in all three Classics beside Justify in his Triple Crown sweep.

The Awesome Again colt began this year with a neck victory against conditional claimers at Oaklawn Park before winning the Grade 2 Risen Star at Fair Grounds by a nose on February 17. The colt, who will make his 13th career start in the Travers, has been a workhorse for Lukas.

"He's a strong, competitive horse," he said. "He enjoys training, but you can't do what I've done with him with many of them. He's thriving on it. I think we're competitive in there [Travers]. Nobody is talking our horse at all which I like, but that's when we're the most dangerous."

Lukas said he believes the Travers will present a different race scenario than the Haskell.

"In the Haskell we were running against one horse [Good Magic]," said the Hall of Famer. "In this race we're running against a bunch of them, seven or eight of them. If we had to run the Haskell over, we'd change something. We wouldn't have let him scoot off the turn like he did with a three-length lead and try to chase him down. That won't work, but that's the Haskell. Forget that. We're back now where we're taking on seven or eight other pretty good horses so we've got to play the cards that were dealt. Coming off the top of the stretch I don't know who the hell is going to be there."