The Final Time They Met: Early Voting, with Jockey Jose Ortiz up, leads Epicenter and jockey Joel … [+]
The 2022 Travers put up positions have been drawn, the morning line has been issued by the NYRA’s odds gods, and the trainers are again of their barns sharpening their tactical sabers for the August 27 working of what’s really shaping as much as be a great late-summer Grade 1. Phenom 2022 Derby-stealer Wealthy Strike is again, and so is that sneaky Preakness-stealer Early Voting.
Epicenter, the sufferer of these back-to-back “robberies” and the morning line favourite, has redeemed himself — kind of — on the Spa earlier this month within the bracing Jim Dandy and appears able to rumble. In no way least, Zandon, one in every of this three-year-old crop’s normal suspects, is considered coaching effectively and able to take ‘em all down. Including to the image, Coach Chad Brown could have his fingers full with a minimum of three contenders vying for the Travers’ $1.2 million, two of the above favorites in Zandon and Early Voting, and the new latecomer-who-cannot-be-counted-out, Artorius.
Backside line: If Epicenter’s going to reside as much as his favored standing, he’s going to should work for it. A minimum of he’s demonstrated that he likes the observe, and Steve Asmussen has been letting him work it for a strong month.
However earlier than we wade into the nitty-gritty of this bracing six-way battle, herewith, the put up positions and morning line.
(Publish Place, Horse, Jockey, Morning Line)
1 Cyberknife, Florent Geroux, 7-2
2 Wealthy Strike, Sonny Leon, 10-1
3 Ain’t Life Grand, Tyler Gaffalione, 20-1
4 Gilded Age, Jorge Alvarado, 30-1
5 Artorius, Irad Ortiz, 9-2
6 Epicenter, Joel Rosario, 7-5
7 Early Voting, Jose Ortiz, 8-1
8 Zandon, Flavien Prat, 5-1
(Supply: NYRA, 8/23/2022)
Confronted with many threatening high contenders, amongst them the Derby and the Preakness winners, we will depend, with Cyberknife at 7-2 and the newcomer Artorius at a detailed 9-2, six favorites. Put one other manner, on this Travers as within the Breeders’ Cup races, every of the morning-line favored contenders might be combating no less than 5 opponents who’ve been acknowledged by our greatest gimlet-eyed oddsmakers to be threats who have to be taken into consideration in any tactical fascinated with the race. It’s the type of tight, closely-matched subject that racemakers dream of, and that’s placing it mildly. Kudos to the trainers for getting all people there.
The star jockeys — the Ortiz brothers, Rosario, Prat, Geroux, Gaffalione, Alvarado, Leon — add a lot wattage, and produce their very own appreciable tactical prowess to their mounts. It is a manner of claiming that the matrices of handicapping this volcanic subject might be complicated as a result of the elements that can compose the working might be so sharp and so finely calibrated.
Right here’s a superb instance: Newcomer Artorius is third-favorite over each the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness winners. He’s obtained high jock Irad Ortiz within the irons. So, if Preakness victor Early Voting desires to get by Artorius, as we all know he does, then high jock Jose Ortiz might be executing his plan for the best way to take his brother down.
Ergo: One very finely calibrated calculation in handicapping Early Voting’s battle with Artorius needs to be, how effectively do the Ortiz brothers know one another’s pondering within the warmth of a battle? Odds are that they know one another pretty effectively. Enjoyable, proper? It’s virtually Greek, that fraternal race narrative, or no less than as near a mythological stage as we will are available in as we speak’s sport, and that’s only one lone vector of competitors on this Travers’ fabulous six-way battle.
