Sovereignty Wins, Bracket Buster Places, Magnitude Shows

Surging in the last furlong, Sovereignty handily put Bracket Buster ten lengths behind him at the wire to take the 156th running of the Travers Stakes at Saratoga on Saturday. For its part in Sovereignty’s shockingly dominant spring and summer campaign, Saratoga’s supposedly dream-busting track served only to cement the winner’s sheer dominance of his division. Ten lengths back, Bracket Buster held on to second, and the somewhat warmly touted second-favorite, Magnitude, finished in show, a breathtaking 20 and three-fourths lengths behind Sovereignty. Comparisons of any horse to Secretariat are difficult at best, but Sovereignty’s winning margin against the field were Secretariat-like.

It was as if there were two races being run; one run by Sovereignty, and the second run by the remaining four. Magnitude’s trainer Steve Asmussen bit through his disappointment to observe in a most sporting manner that Sovereignty’s talent was generational. The race was Sovereignty trainer William Mott’s first Travers win.

Magnitude had come down from the 2-1 morning line by post time to go off at 7-2, but Bracket Buster, who went off at 17-1 to place, pleased his trainer Victoria Oliver by stepping smartly out of the pack to challenge Sovereignty briefly at the top of the stretch. His rather short-lived mini-duel with Sovereignty at the top of the stretch certainly gave her room for hope, who said, “He ran a big, big race. I think it’s hard to say you have a shot against that horse (Sovereignty), but turning for home I thought we were going to run tough. We just got beat by a better horse. It’s good money for second and he showed that he belongs.”

Sovereignty had slipped comfortably into the pack at the first turn, and predictably, perhaps, lay fourth and momentarily last out of that turn. But, methodically, as per their playbook, jockey Junior Alvarado and Sovereignty threaded their way up to third by the far turn, and then moved up on Bracket Buster, who had overtaken the early speedster Magnitude. As Magnitude faded in the second turn, it seemed that Bracket Buster had more race left in him and he challenged Sovereignty, who had not yet flicked on his afterburners. The challenge lasted for just a couple of strides coming into the stretch, and then Sovereignty was off. In fact Sovereignty surged twice, once to put Bracket Buster behind him, and then again sharply in the last furlong, to put the full ten lengths between him and his place horse.

Victorious trainer Mott savored that burst of excellence, along with his first-ever Travers win in what was, for the reserved South Dakotan, a measure of ebullience. It has been an extraordinary feat, remarked widely in racing, that Mott has carefully kept Sovereignty in peak form for four months, through resounding victories in the Derby, Belmont, Jim Dandy and Travers. Of the race itself, Mott was positively sanguine. “From the eighth pole to the wire, I said ‘Wow.’ He’s looking pretty magnificent now,” the trainer said.