Arcangelo’s Trainer Jena Antonucci Eyes The Breeders’ Cup Classic For The Travers Winner

Somehow, despite his clean, solid Belmont win, the fine Travers winner Arcangelo truly needed the Travers to cement his champion’s status. Put another way, the horse, himself, didn’t need a whit of vindication for anything — he did what he did mighty well. The hesitancy lay in the racing world — specifically, in the NYRA oddsmakers who slotted him as the second favorite in the Travers’ morning line last week, and in the Saratoga money on race day, as he topped Forte for favorite status in mid-afternoon, whereupon the money turned slightly against him, and he slid back to second-favorite just before post.

So, in this way, having the colt come back after the Belmont to beat Derby winner Mage, Preakness winner National Treasure, and supposed main rival Forte tastes a bit sweeter to trainer Jena Antonucci and Arcangelo’s owners. Ms. Antonucci has run an admirable, most careful campaign, giving the colt weeks off before running him back, for anything. Obviously, days of recovery and a bit of careful work lie before Arcangelo. The observer has the sense that there just are no hard, fast decisions in the Antonucci barn about running anybody back quickly.

And that bears a relation to the Breeders’ Cup: For Arcangelo, pointedly, there were ten luxurious summer weeks between the Belmont and the Travers — weeks in which to grow, stretch, lollygag about in the pastures, and, yes, work. But there were no races, no prep in the formal, old, racing sense of “The best prep for a big race is a race.”

And more pointedly still, for Ms. Antonucci as well as for her athlete, there are ten long, luxurious weeks of exactly that sort of unpressured training between now and the November 4 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita.