Travers Preview

The final major race for straight 3yo's until December is on Saturday. Lets take a look at this year's Travers field:

11th Race - Saratoga - Saturday, August 27th, 2016
STAKES. 1 1/4 Mile Dirt. Purse $1,250,000. Travers S. (Grade 1). FOR THREE YEAR OLDS. By subscription of $1,250 each which should accompany the nomination; $9,000 to pass the entry box and an additional $9,750 to start. For horses not originally nominated, a supplemental payment of $12,500 along with the entry and starting fees may be made at any time prior to the closing of entries. The purse for the Travers shall be divided as follows: $670,000 to the owner of the winner, $230,000 to second, $125,000 to third, $85,000 to fourth, $50,000 to fifth, $35,000 to sixth, $30,000 to seventh and $25,000 to eighth. Weight 126 lbs. Trophies will be presented to the winning owner, trainer and jockey. Closed Saturday, August 13, 2016 with 22 Nominations. (05:44 PM) (14)
PP Horse A/S M/E Wgt Jockey Trainer
1 Arrogate 3 C L 126 Smith Mike E. Baffert Bob
2 American Freedom 3 C L o 126 Bejarano Rafael Baffert Bob
3 My Man Sam 3 C L 126 Franco Manuel Brown Chad C.
4 Governor Malibu 3 C L 126 Rosario Joel Clement Christophe
5 Forever D'oro 3 C L 126 Saez Luis Stewart Dallas
6 Anaximandros 3 C L 126 Reyes Leonel Yanakov Mikhail
7 Exaggerator 3 C L 126 Desormeaux Kent J. Desormeaux J. Keith
8 Destin 3 C L 126 Castellano Javier Pletcher Todd A.
9 Gift Box 3 R L 126 Alvarado Junior Brown Chad C.
10 Connect 3 C L 126 Velazquez John R. Brown Chad C.
11 Majesto 3 R L b 126 Santana, Jr. Ricardo Delgado Gustavo
12 Creator 3 C L 126 Ortiz, Jr. Irad Asmussen Steven M.
13 Laoban 3 C L 126 Ortiz Jose L. Guillot Eric J.
14 Gun Runner 3 C L 126 Geroux Florent Asmussen Steven M.

Big field first off, but of course no Nyquist. The weather report for Saturday doesn't favor Exaggerator, however his 1 dry track win was at Saratoga. The downside? It was a one turn race. Laoban won't go off the odds that he did in the Jim Dandy. I'm not so sure Creator can rebound from that poor effort. Gift Box and Connect could easily go 1-2, and Governor Malibu also has a big chance. My Derby pick My Man Sam is coming off an runner up finish at Saratoga to older horses (the winner of course was Tale of Verve who was 2nd in last year's Preakness). Gun Runner I think is a step below these horses, American Freedom did great in the Haskell can he follow it up? So who wins? I'm thinking it's between Destin, Governor Malibu and Exaggerator. I'm going with Destin for the win, Gov. Malibu for second and Exaggerator for third.