- Renegade, 3-1 on the morning line, won the Jim Dandy four weeks ago, the prep all three of Todd Pletcher’s Travers winners used.
- Favorite Golden Tempo, 5-2, has not raced since winning the Belmont on June 6, after a lung infection cost him the Jim Dandy.
- Napoleon Solo is the only true front-runner in the 10-horse field, a pace shape working against the race’s five closers.
- Sea Strike owns the field’s top recent speed figure but has never raced beyond 1 1/8 miles.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Renegade at 3-1 is the best bet to win Saturday’s $1.25 million Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course, where the Jim Dandy winner faces Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes winner Golden Tempo, a 5-2 morning-line favorite who has not raced in 12 weeks.
Renegade Has The Fitness And The Pletcher Pattern
No one in the field has finished closer to Golden Tempo than Renegade, beaten a neck in the Kentucky Derby and then third behind him in the Belmont. He comes into the 2026 Travers Stakes off a half-length win over Commandment in the Aug. 1 Jim Dandy.
That is the classic four-weeks-out prep that produced all three of Todd Pletcher’s Travers winners, most recently Fierceness in 2024. Four weeks between races against 12 for the favorite is the sharpest form edge in the race.
The counter-case is real. Tyler Gaffalione rides Renegade for the first time, replacing Irad Ortiz Jr., who has been sidelined since early August with a foot injury. A colt who sat 11 lengths off the pace in the Jim Dandy depends on precise timing from a rider who has never asked him, and he is also one of the five closers a soft pace would compromise all at once. At 3-1 those risks are paid for. At the favorite’s price they would not be.
Golden Tempo Returns Off A Lung Infection
Golden Tempo has done the most of any 3-year-old in training. He won the Derby from last in a field of 19, won the Belmont over this same Saratoga strip, and is 2-for-2 at the Travers distance of 1 1/4 miles. Jose Ortiz, aboard for both classic wins, stays on from post 9.
The layoff is the question the price ignores. A bacterial lung infection diagnosed in late June cost him 10 days of training and knocked him out of the Jim Dandy, and Saturday is his first start in 84 days, off a series of Saratoga workouts. Trainer Cherie DeVaux, the first woman to train a Kentucky Derby winner, caught the infection before it turned into pneumonia, but a work tab is not a race.
A deep closer needing a race-fit finish, off a three-month layoff, into a possibly slow pace is a 5-2 shot carrying three separate ways to lose. The Belmont Stakes form makes him the class of the race, and the setup makes him a vulnerable favorite.
Napoleon Solo Decides The Shape For Everyone
Preakness winner Napoleon Solo, 8-1 with Hall of Famer John Velazquez taking over, is the lone confirmed front-runner among the 10 runners. If he clears to an uncontested lead and slows it down, Golden Tempo, Renegade, The Puma, Silent Tactic and Ocelli, all come-from-behind types, get compromised in the same instant.
Haskell winner Baby Vino and unbeaten Leading Change are the two with the tactical speed to press him, and whether either does is the swing variable in the entire race. Napoleon Solo has never tried 1 1/4 miles, which is why he is a pace threat rather than the pick.
Sea Strike, 5-1 for Chad Brown, is the sharpest alternative on figures after an 8 1/4-length romp in the Curlin Stakes, run faster than Renegade’s Jim Dandy over the same track and distance a day earlier. He is also making just his fourth career start, and Brown is 0-for-18 in the Travers. The stalking style fits the projected pace; the resume does not fit the trip.
The Full Field And Morning Line
Odds are the official morning line from Monday’s draw. Post time for Race 13 is 6:35 p.m. ET on Fox.
1
- Horse
- Emerging Market
- Jockey
- Ricardo Santana Jr.
- Odds
- 15-1
2
- Horse
- Leading Change
- Jockey
- Manny Franco
- Odds
- 12-1
3
- Horse
- Napoleon Solo
- Jockey
- John Velazquez
- Odds
- 8-1
4
- Horse
- The Puma
- Jockey
- Javier Castellano
- Odds
- 8-1
5
- Horse
- Renegade
- Jockey
- Tyler Gaffalione
- Odds
- 3-1
6
- Horse
- Ocelli
- Jockey
- Edgard Zayas
- Odds
- 20-1
7
- Horse
- Sea Strike
- Jockey
- Flavien Prat
- Odds
- 5-1
8
- Horse
- Baby Vino
- Jockey
- Paco Lopez
- Odds
- 10-1
9
- Horse
- Golden Tempo
- Jockey
- Jose Ortiz
- Odds
- 5-2
10
- Horse
- Silent Tactic
- Jockey
- Luis Saez
- Odds
- 10-1
Javier Castellano, aboard The Puma, has won a record seven Travers, and John Velazquez picks up Napoleon Solo from Paco Lopez, who lands on Baby Vino. Deeper in the horse betting exotics, Silent Tactic, never worse than third in seven starts and 10-1 with a pedigree for the trip, and The Puma, fourth in the Haskell in his comeback race, are the value underneath, while 0-for-10 Ocelli needs a pace collapse the projected shape does not offer.
The winner of the 157th Travers takes the Man o’ War Cup and, in a year when the Derby, Preakness and Belmont winners meet for the first time all season, likely the inside track in the 3-year-old championship futures that legal sports betting sites will price into the fall. The field stands as drawn; NYRA posts scratches race morning.
