Not for nothing is Saratoga infamous as the graveyard of champions – as Steve Dennis explains in his latest missive
It is time once again – stop yawning at the back – to wheel out the old phrase ‘graveyard of champions’. This should not be confused with the old phrase ‘breakfast of champions’, although anyone could be forgiven for mixing them up.
Why is it time to talk about the breakfast of champions? See? It’s that easy to get them muddled. Why are we talking about the graveyard of champions? [note to copy ed. Please check!]
Because it’s Saratoga, it’s Travers day on Saturday, and there’s a champ putting his neck and his reputation on the line in the big race that looks harder to lose than to win.
The morning-line has Sovereignty in at 2-5 to beat four rivals in the $1.25m highlight of the meeting, the Midsummer Derby that actually takes place towards the end of summer.
He’s a certainty according to the board; two of the opposing quartet have never won a stakes race, another has one stakes win to his name, and the main danger is a G2 winner. Sovereignty, lest we forget, won the Kentucky Derby, the Belmont and the Jim Dandy in his last three starts. On form, on past performance, he’s a mortal lock.
But that’s what they said about Man o’War, about Gallant Fox, about Secretariat, about American Pharoah, and the stones standing in the graveyard tell a different story. Read ’em and weep for all mortal locks whose mortality was exposed by the Saratoga stretch.
Man o’War was beaten once in his life and that defeat was at Saratoga. Gallant Fox, Secretariat and American Pharoah came to Saratoga wearing the Triple Crown and went home wearing a dunce’s cap. It happens, not all the time, but it happens often enough to put uncertainty into the mind of anyone certain about Sovereignty.
Magnitude should magnify that uncertainty. He has the feel of a usurper, a fresh-faced intern with an unsettling stare and no regard for office politics. Sure, Bill Mott looks all set to win his first Travers with the best horse he’s had for 30 years, but maybe the Saratoga janitor should hold off on ordering the blue paint for the infield canoe.
Magnitude hosed his rivals by almost ten lengths in the G2 Risen Star at in February at Fair Grounds and looked a big Derby contender until an ankle chip ended his hopes.
He returned to the fray six weeks ago and laid all to waste in the Iowa Derby, and his relentless brand of front-running could ensure that once he gets away, he ain’t coming back.
“It is not a done deal, that is why they are going to run the race,” says Mott, sounding tired of the question. Chad Brown, who sends out the unproven Strategic Focus, says almost gleefully: “It’s Saratoga and anything can happen.”
Believe it. This is an afternoon filled with thrilling match-ups – Thorpedo Anna against Raging Sea in the Personal Ensign, Chancer McPatrick against Smoken Wicked in the H Allen Jerkens Memorial, Book’em Danno against Mullikin in the Forego. But it is the duel between Sovereignty and destiny that casts the longest shadow under the midsummer – okay, just this once – sun in upstate New York.
Weary experience tells us that nothing that happens between gate and wire is as straightforward as it may seem. A short field; a dangerous rival on the lead; the accumulated mileage of hard-won glory weighing on the legs; bad luck; no luck.
Sovereignty is a 2-5 shot but if all life is six-to-five against, as Sam the Gonoph said in Damon Runyon’s short story A Nice Price, then he is the underlay of the year.
Then again, of course, he could just have them all for breakfast.
Horse of the moment
Science corner. The gas Nitrogen forms roughly 78 per cent of Earth’s atmosphere. Every breath we take is four-fifths nitrogen. The three-year-old filly Nitrogen is even more abundant, winning 85 per cent of her races this year and taking the breath away with her victory in the G1 Alabama on Saturday, cruising by a length and a half under Jose Ortiz.
Nitrogen (the filly, because science class is over) has only recently made the switch to the main track, having hoovered up three Graded wins on the weeds in the spring before an off-the-turf score in the G3 Wonder Again here in June opened trainer Mark Casse’s eyes to her versatility.
“I was hoping she would handle the dirt in the stretch and give me a little bit,” said Ortiz. “I needed another gear and she gave it to me, so that was amazing.”
Dirt is the plan from here on in, with one race before the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Del Mar on November 1. In this sort of form, Nitrogen will be in her element.
Jockey of the moment
When Paco Lopez turns up at the Spa, bettors should take notice. The undisputed King of Monmouth Park – 11 titles and counting – is hard to tear away from his current east-coast stamping grounds that include Colonial Downs and Parx, but he came north for two rides last Friday and hit the jackpot aboard sprinting mare Future Is Now, trained by Michael Trombetta, in the Smart And Fancy Stakes.
“Today she was a little nervous in the gate, but that’s her – she always breaks good,” said Lopez, after getting the money by a length and a half on the odds-on favourite. “I let her go at the three-and-a-half, pick it up, pick it up again at the eighth-pole.”
Lopez has taken just six rides here during the course of the meet and ridden three winners. He takes two more on Saturday, getting up on Book’em Danno in the G1 Forego and Beuys in an allowance. Never say we don’t mark your card in advance.
Trainer of the moment
They are not long, the days of wine and roses, not nearly long enough. Ask Dale Romans, who was on top of the racing world here ten years ago when his Keen Ice upset American Pharoah in the Travers, who has a list of Graded-stakes honours that is long and lavish, but with only one addition since 2020. That could change soon, though.
Last Saturday Romans saddled his fourth winner of the meet (from just six runners) when juvenile colt Bobrovsky nailed the Skidmore Stakes under Junior Alvarado on his first start on turf, hinting at bigger things to come. Romans is taking that hint.
“This horse could, I think, be a Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint horse,” he said. Romans hasn’t trained a G1 winner since Promises Fulfilled took the Jerkens Memorial here in 2018, but all anyone ever needs is one good horse, and Bobrovsky could fit the bill.
What they’re saying
“I’ve been coming here since I was ten and the Alabama has always been huge. I can’t even explain it. This is all I’ve ever wanted to do since I was a little boy.”
Nitrogen made the boyhood dreams of trainer Mark Casse come true when making her G1 breakthrough in the Alabama.
“They gave me the opportunity to train her and come for this race. I appreciate that a lot. It’s a big event – back in Scandinavia, we’re not used to coming here.”
Niels Petersen (right), 13-time champion trainer back home in Norway, got a kick out of bringing Queen Azteca for the Alabama. She finished fifth, and will now stay Stateside.
“They better bring a bear, because I’m bringing a grizzly.”
He said it before the Kentucky Oaks, now he’s saying it again. Kenny McPeek is high on the chances of Thorpedo Anna in Saturday’s Personal Ensign.
Horse to watch
How many? 17¾? Really? It’s all there in black and white, the 17¾ lengths by which It’s Our Time spreadeagled his rivals when winning on debut in a maiden over 6½ furlongs.
The Equibase comment says that the colt was ‘geared down’; Luis Saez could have gone for a hotdog and still come through with a double-figure advantage such was the scale of the colt’s dominance. The time was decent too, less than two seconds off the track record, and although the form probably means nothing the style could certainly mean something – a Beyer speed figure of 94 is lagniappe.
“Down the lane, I had a tear in my eye because it’s really a beautiful thing to see something like that and know you were a part of getting the horse there,” said trainer Tom Amoss, who has no firm plans regarding the next race. Something ending in ‘stakes’, you’d reckon.
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