Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
One horse seized the early lead and never looked back in the Grade 1, $1 millionWhitney Stakeson Saturday at Saratoga.
Overwhelming favorite National Treasure, right? Wrong.
Try Arthur’s Ride, a runaway allowance winner at Saratoga in his last start who was stepping up to graded-stakes company for the first time for Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott on a sealed and muddy track pounded by overnight rain.
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The 4-year-old gray son of Tapit easily dispatched late-running Crupi by 2 1/4 lengths for jockey Júnior Alvarado. Post Time, a runner-up when National Treasure dominated the June 8 Met Mile (G1) at Saratoga, came in third. The upstart winner completed 1 1/8 miles in 1:48.54. He paid $15.80 for a $2 win wager.
“He broke very sharp, put him on the lead, and he took it from there,” Alvarado said. “He was traveling very beautiful the whole way. When I hit the quarter pole, his ears were still pricked in the air, and I was like, oh, boy, I think I have plenty of horse left.”
He had a ton of horse left.
National Treasure, meanwhile, had looked to be virtually unbeatable in the Met Mile. He entered the Whitney atop the standings in the National Thoroughbred Racing Association’s weekly poll and could have taken a significant step toward horse-of-the-year honors if the Whitney had provided an encore to his rousing Met Mile.
Didn’t happen. Didn’t come close to happening.
National Treasure was simply not the same horse that put on such a show during the Belmont Stakes racing festival. Perhaps the gooey going was to blame for his dismal sixth-place finish. Flavien Prat, his jockey, thought so.
“He was switching leads and stuff like this,” Prat said. “Usually, he is pretty quick going into the first turn. He was not today, so I would imagine it was the track or something.” The son of Quality Road, who had shipped in from the West Coast, dropped to 0-for-3 on an off track.
Arthur’s Ride continues to show an affinity for Saratoga. He boasts back-to-back impressive victories here, with the Whitney following a geared-down 12 3/4-length demolition of a June 7 allowance field. He produced solid runner-up efforts when he launched his career at the upstate New York track as a 2-year-old.
The colt broke his maiden in February at Gulfstream Park at 3 but was sidelined for the rest of the year with what Mott described only as “soft-tissue issues.” They apparently were concerning enough that the trainer said, “When they’re on the farm and laid up, you don’t know if you’re ever going to see them again.”
Fortunately for owner Glassman Racing, Arthur’s Ride made his way back to the starting gate and has swept 3 of 4 starts this season. He is blossoming into what Mott always thought he had a chance to become.
“We felt if we could get him back as a 3-, 4-year-old, he was just going to get better,” said the conditioner who is renowned for his ability to bring out the best in older horses. “He was a big, tall, rangy horse that had every license to get better and we were right about that.”
No one could have anticipated that Arthur’s Ride would make it look so easy in the Whitney. He took the field of 10 through an opening quarter in 23.26 seconds. He continued to roll along through a half in 46.63 seconds.
“Júnior said going down the backside he thought he was going in 48 instead of 46 and change,” Mott noted. “When he was headed down the backside I said, man, how good is this? He looked like he was just galloping.”
The eventual victor never was threatened. “He’s got a lot of stamina. I knew if he could get to the quarter pole on the lead, he could put them away,” Mott said.
Arthur’s Ride secured an automatic, fees-paid berth in the $7 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 2 at Del Mar while filling in one of the few holes in his trainer’s gaudy résumé.
If the colt comes out of the Whitney well, Mott indicated he is likely to run him once more, in the Sept. 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup (G1) at Saratoga, as a prelude to the Classic.
“It’s exciting. It’s exciting to even think about having a horse you can run in the Breeders’ Cup Classic,” Mott said.
Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, Arthur’s Ride must be viewed as a major player among Classic contenders. “They led everybody to us, the best that they had here at the time, and he handled them very well,” Mott said. “He ran a super race.”
Undoubtedly, voters in the NTRA poll will have to rethink their rankings.
“We might get honorable mention now,” Mott cracked.
