SARATOGA SPRINGS — A rainbow has never looked so absurd.
Absurd, because, from the northeastern sky, it perfectly framed the Saratoga Race Course starting gate moments before Arcangelo won the 154th Grade I Travers on Saturday.
Absurd, because it showed up on what had to be one of the grimmest days in the history of the track.
Arcangelo and jockey Javier Castellano finished a length ahead of Disarm to give Castellano his record-extending seventh Travers win — no one else has more than four — and Jena Antonucci enjoyed another ground-breaking victory, as the first woman to train a Travers winner.
But the widely applauded win occurred less than two hours after New York Thunder broke down with a catastrophic injury as he was on the verge of winning the Grade I Allen Jerkens, a horrifying echo to three weeks ago, when Maple Leaf Mel suffered the same fate in front of another huge crowd on Whitney Day, in the Grade I Test.
Saturday’s Travers marked just the fourth time that three distinct winners of the Triple Crown races met in this race, and Arcangelo was one of them, after having won the Belmont Stakes.
Nevertheless, Jim Dandy winner Forte, the 2022 2-year-old male champion, was the Travers favorite, at 8-5 on the toteboard.
Arcangelo, who went off at odds of 5-2, saved ground around the first turn, tracked Scotland, Preakness winner National Treasure and Tapit Trice in mid-pack down the backstretch, then gradually made a move to the lead at the three-sixteenths pole.
Disarm came up the rail down the stretch to make a bid for the lead, but Arcangelo had plenty of gas to get to the wire first.
The Arcangelo team, including owner Jon Ebbert of Blue Rose Farm, drew a rousing round of applause from a crowd of 48,292, some of whom left the grounds after having witnessed New York Thunder euthanized near the finish line.
“Extra prayers and wishing everyone well wishes and safety, and we had to stay laser-focused on what we had to go and do, and making sure we had the right energy around our team and our horse and our plan,” Antonucci said.
“I guess the more this horse does, the more we’re going to keep writing some history. Again, just immense gratitude for all of this, and for this horse, most importantly.”
When Arcangelo won the Belmont, Antonucci became the first woman to train a winner of any of the three Triple Crown races, and Arcangelo was just the seventh horse to even be saddled by a woman trainer in the Travers, first run in 1864, much less win it.
He did with the help of a heady ride from the Hall of Famer Castellano, who previously won the Travers on Catholic Boy (2018), Keen Ice (2015), V.E. Day (2014), Stay Thirsty (2011), Afleet Express (2010) and Bernardini (2006).
“It seemed like everybody had a plan. I said to myself, ‘What’s going on here?’” Castellano said with a laugh. I thought it was going to be a nice easy trip, but when you get there, it’s not friends. You have to earn it. Nobody will give you anything. You have to be smart, and you have to ride the best horse. And that’s exactly what I did.
“I saved all the ground on the first turn, and little by little I let it develop. On the backside, I saw three horses going to the lead, and two of them I targeted in my handicapping of the race. I was surprised Tapit Trice was up there in the early stages of the race. I felt like I had so much horse I could blow by and open up by 10, but I took my time.”
Disarm ran a big race to finish second after trailing the seven-horse field early, Tapit Trice held on to third, Forte was fourth, National Treasure finished fifth, early front-runner Scotland faded to sixth and Kentucky Derby winner Mage never got in the game and was last.
Arcangelo and National Treasure were the only horses in the Travers field who had not run since the June 10 Belmont.
Antonucci said that span of time without a race wasn’t a layoff so much as simply part of the process of getting her horse ready for the Travers.
“I’m getting a lot of flak for that still,” she said. “It just never was a layoff in our minds. I understand the traditionalists of this sport are always going to view gaps in that manner.
“This horse has had his entire career that way because Jon wants this horse to run along slowly, correctly and be given the time he needs to grow up. I feel we have respected that in the horse. When Jon asked after the Belmont, ‘Are we good on fitness to get here without a race,’ there was no hesitation. Yes. We’re fine.”
“Javier rode Arcangelo great. Jena won. It’s a great day for racing,” said Forte’s co-owner Mike Repole. “Thank God, after what happened [in the Allen Jerkens], this is the best outcome that you could have for the Travers. She deserves it. I’m not afraid to say it: That’s the top 3-year-old in the country. No doubt.”
Contact Mike MacAdam at mikemac@dailygazette.com. Follow on X @Mike_MacAdam.
