SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Having asserted his dominance yet again in the 3-year-old division with his 10-length victory in Saturday’s Grade 1 Travers Stakes, Sovereignty will next attempt to tackle what seemingly is a deep roster of older dirt males in the $7 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 1 at Del Mar.
Trainer Bill Mott said Sunday that Sovereignty came out of his Travers victory in good shape and will just train up to the Classic without a race in between. Sierra Leone, who won last year’s Classic, did something similar having not run in between his third-place finish in the Travers and the Classic. White Abarrio and Flightline, the 2023 and 2022 Classic winners, respectively, had three months and two months between their previous race and the Breeders’ Cup.
“I just don’t think it’s necessary,” Mott said. “I think we’ve done pretty well with a few of them running here and then going directly to the Breeders’ Cup.”
In 2023, Elite Power won his second consecutive Breeders’ Cup Sprint for Mott off a 10-week freshening. In 2022, the Mott-trained Cody’s Wish recorded the first of his two consecutive Breeders Cup Dirt Mile victories off the same 10-week layoff.
Sovereignty has shown the ability to run well fresh. His victory in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth in February came off a 125-day layoff. He won the Grade 2 Jim Dandy seven weeks after he won the Belmont Stakes.
Sovereignty’s edge on many of his rivals, at least in the 3-year-old division, is his affinity for the 1 1/4-mile distance. He has won the Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes and Travers all at that distance, which is the same distance as the BC Classic.
“He’s shown no weakness at that distance,” Mott said.
Mott will watch this weekend’s two big races in the older division – Saturday’s $1 million Pacific Classic at Del Mar and Sunday’s $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup at Saratoga – with interest. The Pacific Classic is expected to include the 4-year-old Nysos, the 4-year-old Fierceness, who won last year’s Travers, as well as the 3-year-old Journalism, second to Sovereignty in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont.
Sunday’s Jockey Club Gold Cup at Saratoga is scheduled to feature, among others, top older dirt male horses Mindframe and Sierra Leone, the one-two finishers from the Grade 1 Stephen Foster in June at Churchill Downs.
“There’s some nice horses sitting out there," Mott said. “It’s going to be a challenge.”
The Travers was anything but a challenge. When Magnitude, dominant winner of the Risen Star Stakes and Iowa Derby, didn’t display his exceptional speed, it kept the field relatively bunched up. Though Sovereignty was kept in between horses early by Junior Alvarado, there was never any real pressure coming from the horses surrounding him.
“When I saw him go down the backside and he was in between, I said ‘Oh boy,’ “ Mott said. “I asked Junior about it and he said everybody was spread out quite a bit. From our vantage point, he’s inside and I didn’t know how much the horse outside of him [McAfee] had and if he could have gone with him. By the time that horse got to the 4 1/2-[furlong pole], he was already [tiring]. Now, we go from in between them to all of a sudden he’s third tipped on the outside.”
Turning into the stretch, Sovereignty was already engaged with Bracket Buster, who had put away Magnitude. In the final furlong, Sovereignty simply glided away from him.
Sovereignty’s final time of 2:00.89 for the 1 1/4 miles is equal to the fifth-fastest Travers, which was run for the 156th time. When Easy Goer won it in 1989, his final time was recorded as 2:00.80, as times were not recorded in hundredths. Sovereignty earned a career-best 115 Beyer Speed Figure.
Mott said that Sovereignty would continue to train at Saratoga before shipping to California most likely in time to get a workout in over the Del Mar surface.
Meanwhile, there are no definitive plans for those who finished behind Sovereignty in the Travers.
The connections of Bracket Buster were thrilled to have finished second, according to Braxton Lynch, founder and racing manager of the ownership group BBN Racing. Bracket Buster, who was 10 3/4 lengths clear of Magnitude, was headed back to trainer Vicki Oliver’s Keeneland base.
“We’re going to take our time and make a decision, we’re not in any hurry,” Lynch said. “He ran really, really hard, I’m sure it took something out of him. We’ll see how he bounces back and when Vicki’s happy with him we’ll look for a race. Nothing on the table right now.”
Magnitude finished a well-beaten third as the second choice in the race. Magnitude wasn’t dragging jockey Ben Curtis to the front as he had in the Risen Star in February and Iowa Derby in July, races he dominated by open lengths.
“He wasn’t as sharp,” trainer Steve Asmussen said.
Asmussen said Magnitude would stay in Saratoga to train for the foreseeable future before any decision is made on where he would next start.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment in the Travers was Strategic Focus, who was basically eased though officially beaten 67 3/4 lengths. Trainer Chad Brown said Strategic Focus blew up in the paddock when he put the blinkers on him. The horse acted up on the track and in the gate.
“He just did everything he could to get them off,” Brown said. “I’m so disappointed in the horse because in the morning he trained so good with them. He wasn’t going to win anyway but it would have been nice to see him run a solid race in a short field and a get a piece of a big purse.”
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