Racing Roundtable: Dornoch, Thorpedo Anna and a potential Travers clash

This week, the Racing Roundtable debates Dornoch and Thorpedo Anna's Travers (G1) chances and discusses what else caught their eye from the weekend of racing.

Is Dornoch the horse to beat in the Travers?

James Scully: Dornoch became the first three-year-old male to record multiple Grade 1 wins and distinguished himself by stringing together important victories. He was passed by Mindframe in the Belmont (G1) and Haskell (G1), courageously battling back to prevail each time, and Danny Gargan did an excellent job turning his form around following consecutive unplaced efforts in the Blue Grass (G1) and Kentucky Derby (G1) earlier this season. 

Dornoch has risen to the top of his division, but it’s a tenuous edge and he may not be favored in the Travers (G1). Favoritism could go to Thorpedo Anna or the winner of Saturday’s Jim Dandy (G2), but Dornoch is the one with the opportunity to separate himself from the pack with a Travers win.

Vance Hanson: I'd reserve judgment on who the horse to beat in the Travers is until after we see what happens in the Jim Dandy, but there's no question Dornoch padded his credentials for the three-year-old championship by winning the Haskell. Add that to his previous wins in the Belmont and Fountain of Youth (G2), and he's arguably the most accomplished three-year-old male in the crop up to this point. However, I still wouldn't sleep on a horse like Sierra Leone, who we know loves a mile and a quarter and has a pretty good record, too, despite his setbacks in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont. And he still holds a 2-1 edge over Dornoch in head-to-head meetings this year.

Ashley Anderson: Yes. Returning off his Belmont (G1) triumph to take the Haskell (G1) by 1 1/4 lengths, the Good Magic colt planted himself atop a wide-open three-year-old division and deserves respect at the betting windows in the 1 1/4-mile Travers. Entering his three-year-old season, I was skeptical of the colt, who drummed up plenty of hype as a full-brother to Kentucky Derby (G1) champ Mage and seemed to have a lot of luck go his way early in his career. To close out his two-year-old season, he poked a nose in front of a then-inexperienced Sierra Leone in the Remsen (G2), then opened his sophomore season with a 1 3/4-length win in a scratch-depleted Fountain of Youth (G2). He came back down to earth in the Blue Grass (G1), with a fourth to Sierra Leone, and was 10th in the Kentucky Derby, but since then he has taken a major step forward, with a pair of triple-digit Brisnet Speed figures in back-to-back Grade 1 victories.

To win the Haskell, he re-rallied after Mindframe gained a short lead in the stretch, similar to the Belmont, where that rival also gained a narrow advantage in the stretch run before Dornoch beat him at the wire. The Danny Gargan trainee has grit and continues to get better with age. I now look at him as a threat in the Travers and the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1), which will likely be his final race before he retires to stud at Spendthrift.

How do you fancy Thorpedo Anna's chances in the Travers, if she goes?

JS: Favorably, Thorpedo Anna looks poised to give males all they can handle in the Travers if she has no problems with the 1 1/4-mile distance. She’s certainly made nine furlongs look easy, recording convincing wins in the Kentucky Oaks (G1), Acorn (G1), and Coaching Club American Oaks (G1), and jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. had to work to keep her focused while unopposed in the latter.

There’s no point going through the motions against short fields of overmatched fillies – Thorpedo Anna is far superior to female counterparts in her division – and this appears to be a down year for the three-year-old and older male divisions, with none of her possible male rivals being that fast. 

Her speed and form suggest she’ll stack up well against males in the Travers.

VH: I thought for a long time that if Thorpedo Anna was going to take on males this summer, the best spot would have been the Haskell rather than the Travers, based on distance and the historical success of fillies in the race. However, in light of what happened in the Haskell, Kenny McPeek perhaps made the right choice to stick with fillies in the Coaching Club American Oaks.

The Travers is going to be an even tougher spot than the Haskell, and over a distance she has not yet tried. Racing fillies against males makes the most sense if the spot looks winnable, and although she would deserve her place in the Travers, a more winnable spot in my mind would be the Pennsylvania Derby (G1) in September. It's obviously nowhere near as prestigious as the Travers, but at this stage, it might be the best route for her to transcend a division she has all but locked up a championship for.

AA: I look at her as a top-three runner in the field. The Fast Anna filly has now won four straight by a combined 18 3/4 lengths, including her most recent success, a 4 1/2-length conquest in the Coaching Club American Oaks (G1). The Kenny McPeek trainee hopped at the start and was still able to recover to win by open lengths, and her final time of 1:50.95 was not too far off Dornoch's 1:50.31 at the same distance in the Haskell. But Thorpedo Anna's final time is all the more impressive when you consider McPeek noted after the race that rider Brian Hernandez Jr. didn't ask as much of her as he could have. McPeek also seemed to hint the Travers would be the likely target and pedigree-wise — as a daughter of Fast Anna, who's by 2002 Travers winner Medaglia d'Oro — the 1 1/4-mile distance should be no issue for the top three-year-old filly in the country.

What else caught your eye?

JS: Tapit Trice is back, returning from an 11-month layoff with a 5 1/4-length win in the 1 1/8-mile Monmouth Cup (G3), and we’ll see if the encouraging performance bodes well for his future. The gray colt is obviously a candidate to keep progressing off the comebacker, delivering a strong showing in the Jockey Club Gold Cup (G1) next out, but I thought Tapit Trice had a bright future after winning the Tampa Bay Derby (G3) and Bue Grass in his first two stakes attempts last season. He followed with a disappointing seventh in the Kentucky Derby (G1) and was never a serious factor in the Belmont, Haskell, and Travers.

Todd Pletcher is bullish on the Tapit colt being improved as a four-year-old, but I thought the same about Tacitus after his first start at 1 1/4 miles as a four-year-old, an 8 1/4-length Suburban win in a fast time (1:59 2/5). He never won again from five starts, and I hope Tapit Trice has more to offer. 

I’ll also mention the hottest trainer in North America, Mark Casse. From Wednesday to Sunday last week, Casse won 14 of 42 starts (33%), recording three wins and two seconds from five starts at Saratoga, and Casse is prominent in the Saratoga standings with a 6-for-18 record this meet. The American and Canadian Hall of Famer sent out five stakes winners last week – Get Smokin in the United Nations (G2), Pounced in the Lake George (G2), Solo Album in the Trillium (G3), My Boy Prince (Plate Trial), and Mensa in the Victoria. An impressive week, indeed!

VH: Idiomatic just barely pulled out a victory as a 1-10 favorite in the Molly Pitcher (G3) at Monmouth on Saturday. It was a tactically messy race for her; rather than wing it on an uncontested lead, she attempted to lull her rivals to sleep by setting a dawdling pace. That's not the champion mare's style, and it took virtually everything she had to claw back and regain the advantage from Soul of an Angel after that far less accomplished foe took it to her around the far turn. Granted, the track played slow and deep all day, but what should have been an easy win for Idiomatic instead showed that perhaps she isn't quite what she was at this time a year ago. The Personal Ensign (G1) at Saratoga next month will be another opportunity for that thesis to be proved true or not.

AA: Cairo Prince three-year-old My Boy Prince extended his win streak to three when beating six rivals by 1 1/4 lengths in the Plate Trial S., a prep for the King's Plate at Woodbine on Aug. 17. The Mark Casse trainee improved his record to 3-for-4 for the season, with his lone loss coming in the 5 1/2-furlong Palisades on Keeneland's turf, where he returned off a five-month layoff in April. Prior to the Plate Trial, the gray colt had won his previous two starts in seven-furlong stakes on Woodbine's all-weather and was making his first two-turn start on Tapeta when facing the starter in the 1 1/8-mile Plate Trial. My Boy Prince overcame a slow start to score his third consecutive victory and third straight Plate Trial win for Casse. He'll now stretch out over 1 1/4 miles in the King's Plate and will look to give Casse a second straight victory in the first leg of the Canadian Triple Crown.