The entrants were all three-year-old stars, multiple winners of Grade 1 races at Saratoga. Adding the top three-year-old filly in the land, Thorpedo Anna to the starting gate, only further enhanced the quality of the field and the variety of opinions on who was going to win.
No filly has won the Travers since Lady Rotha in 1915, and Thorpedo Anna's second place finish only extended that drought. But what a second place finish. It was Zenyatta and Blame in the 2010 Breeders' Cup Classic, with Mike Repole's Fierceness playing the role of Blame.
The pre-race hype was all about Thorpedo Anna and would she be able to beat the boys, or even finish with a reasonable effort. Her trainer, Ken McPeek announced after Thorpedo Anna won the Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga that her next start would be the Travers.
All conversations leading up to the race included something about her. Her No. 1 post position was going to cost her because she's had a bit of trouble getting out cleanly, and the rail position would bury her with everyone going by her. It didn't happen. She was second at the ¼ pole, one length behind the front running Batten Down.
Fierceness had the best post position, extreme outside in an eight horse field, but was burdened with the opinion that he had yet to turn in two winning efforts back-to-back. Added to that mark against him was the fact that his trainer, Todd Pletcher said after he won the Jim Dandy at Saratoga on July 24, that he thought the horse would need more rest than the interval leading up to the Travers would allow. It was a frank admission from a Hall of Fame trainer, and if Fierceness were a stock, the upcoming quarterly report was not expected to be good.
All the doubts and all the opinions kept the odds on Thorpedo Anna and Fierceness fairly high at $3.90 and $3.40 to $1.00 respectively. The public's money aggregated around Sierra Leone, who was made the nearly 2-1 favorite, despite not winning races lately, and not beating anything in this field. There are strange things done in the fading afternoon summer sun.
The Fox 5 telecast didn't extend long after the finish of the race. We didn't get to learn if owner Mike Repole overruled Pletcher's reluctance about the trace and pushed for Fierceness to be in it. They've been such a winning combination that it's doubtful there could have been any strong disagreement between the owner and the trainer.
At the stretch call Fierceness had a good looking two length lead and looked like he was going to coast home a winner in easy fashion. But then Thorpedo Anna moved from third to second and starting to eat into what had looked like a comfortable lead for Fierceness.
The eighth pole is 220 yards rom the finish, but from there Thorpedo Anna started to shrink Fierceness's lead. Tom Amoss, on of the Fox 5 analysts and a leading trainer himself, said at the end of the race it reminded him of Zenyatta and Blame in the Breeders' Cup classic so many years ago. He was the only one who made the comparison. And it was every bit a valid one.
Thorpedo Anna moved like a torpedo toward a battleship, missing victory by what the chart called a head, but was really half a head. The exacta paid a generous $56 for $2.
Fierceness's jockey John Velazquez is the East Coast Money Mike. Money Mike being Mike Smith who doesn't ride often these days, but is called on to be in the big ones, usually on the West Coast on Bob Baffert trained horses.
Thank goodness for astute TV directors in the truck. We got to see the Repole entourage, which pretty much looks like half the track attendance, jump, tumble and crash into each other so much that they looked like clothes tumbling in a laundromat dryer.
Horse racing is exciting.
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