The 155th running of the $1.25 million Travers Stakes (G1) at Saratoga Race Course on Saturday (Aug. 24), aka the “Midsummer Derby,” is considered the marquee race of the summer. A field of eight 3-year-olds was entered on Sunday. usracing.com is publishing profiles of the contenders.
2024 Travers Stakes Contenders: BATTEN DOWN
Batten Down is at his best freewheeling on a lonesome lead, which is how he broke his maiden and took the Grade 3 Ohio Derby. He couldn’t get to the front early in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy Stakes, where he did put up a fight chasing winner Fierceness and finished 6¾ lengths behind in third.
Batten Down. NYRA Photo.
His chances of making an uncontested lead in the Travers Stakes seem infinitesimal, which is why he’s 20-1 on the morning line. He seems to be in way over his head in his Grade 1 debut, where besides Fierceness he’ll be facing other high-quality speed in Belmont Stakes/Haskell Stakes hero Dornoch, the leading 3-year-old colt, and Kentucky Oaks heroine Thorpedo Anna, queen of the 3-year-old fillies.
Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott knows he’s asking a lot from the son of top sire Tapit.
“Well, the Travers Stakes will be tougher than the Jim Dandy Stakes,” Mott told thotoughbreddailynews.com. “I am not making any predictions. I mean, he would have had to move up to win the Jim Dandy Stakes. He sure has to move up to win the Travers Stakes.”
2024 Travers Stakes Odds, Post Positions and Predictions: Batten Down
Betting advice: Batten Down will win more stakes, but not this loaded edition of the Travers. Throw him out.
Post position: 5
Odds: 20-1
Jockey: Junior Alvarado
Trainer: Bill Mott
Owner: Juddmonte
Career record: 6-2-1-2
Career earnings: $454,850
Last race: Jim Dandy Stakes (3rd)
Top Equibase Speed Figure: 98
Pedigree: Tapit-Close Hatches, by First Defence
Color: Gray/roan
Running style: Frontrunner
Notes: Batten Down, a Juddmonte homebred, is a full brother to multiple graded-stakes winner Tacitus … Mott, a 71-year-old native of South Dakota, is a four-time winner of the Eclipse Award for leading trainer. The Travers is one of the few major races he hasn’t won … Batten Down’s dam is Close Hatches, and his name plays off hers. “Batten down the hatches” is a nautical command to close all openings on a ship to prepare for rough weather.
2024 Travers Stakes Odds
| 1 | Thorpedo Anna | 3-1 | Brian Hernandez | Kenny McPeek |
| 2 | Sierra Leone | 7-2 | Flavien Prat | Chad Brown. |
| 3 | Unmatched Wisdom | 8-1 | Irad Ortiz, Jr. | Chad Brown |
| 4 | Corporate Power | 15-1 | Javier Castellano | Shug McGaughey |
| 5 | Batten Down | 20-1 | Junior Alvarado | Bill Mott |
| 6 | Honor Marie | 20-1 | Tyler Gaffalione | Whit Beckman |
| 7 | Dornoch | 5-2 | Luis Saez | Danny Gargan |
| 8 | Fierceness | 3-1 | John Velazquez | Todd Pletcher |