SARATOGA SPRINGS – The $1 million Travers Stakes, a classic race with a 131-year history of heart-stopping finishes, delivered again yesterday as two courageous 3-year-olds, Unshaded and Albert The Great, battled as a team the length of the stretch, with Unshaded getting the nod at the wire under Shane Sellers before a record crowd of 54,116.
The final margin was a head, and until the final yards Albert The Great looked like a winner. Rebounding from a dismal effort in the Jim Dandy, the Nick Zito-trained colt – ridden for the first time by Jorge “Chop Chop” Chavez – pressed the pace after getting fanned five-wide on the clubhouse turn, took the lead from front-running Commendable on the far turn and wasn’t stopping when Unshaded came to him in the stretch.
“Albert The Great gave a little spurt, and I had my doubts, because my colt doesn’t like to fight head and head,” said Sellers. “But I dug down deep and said ‘Shane, give it all you’ve got,’ and my colt gave me all he’s got and outfought the other horse to the wire.”
Unshaded’s trainer Carl Nafzger had his doubts too.
“Between the eighth pole and the sixteenth pole we got up to him, but we weren’t getting to him,” Nafzger said. “Albert The Great ran a great race. You can’t say enough about what a great job Zito did.”
Nor can you say enough about the job Nafzger, who’d never won the “Midsummer Derby” before, did developing Unshaded. He and owner James Tafel began thinking about “painting the canoe” (the colors of the Travers winner’s silks are traditionally painted on a canoe that floats in the infield lake) back in January, but they didn’t even nominate Unshaded to the Triple Crown.
“He was a long, lanky colt, like a teenager just growing into a man,” said Nafzger, who saddled Unshaded’s sire, champion Unbridled, to win the Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup Classic in 1990. “But the word to concentrate on is ‘focus.’ You’d ask him to take off and he just couldn’t. In football they call it ‘intensity.'”
After winning his first two starts this year, Unshaded won the Lexington Stakes in April by three lengths with a devastating move to circle the field on the far turn. Tafel planned to supplement him to the Kentucky Derby for $150,000, but he didn’t make the 20-horse cut.
After Unshaded ran a close second in the Peter Pan, he was supplemented to the Belmont Stakes for $100,000 and rallied for third, returning with a case of heat exhaustion.
“That was the first time he laid his body down and hooked Grade 1 horses,” Nafzger said, “and he wasn’t fit enough to do it in 97-degree heat going a mile and a half for the first time.”
Unshaded prepped for the Travers in the Jim Dandy here three weeks ago, finishing third as the 2-1 favorite coming from far back. Yesterday he was much closer to the early pace.
“A race over the track is important,” Nafzger said, “but what really happened in the last race was that the horse wasn’t focused, wasn’t sharp, after not racing for seven weeks.
“After that he worked five furlongs in the slop in 1:00.4 and he got focused. We figured he’d be closer, and the pace (:24.1, :48.2) was slower yesterday.”
Winning the Travers for the first time was an emotional experience for Sellers, the Kentucky-based rider who’s experienced some personal problems, including a well-publicized fight with another rider last summer.
“I’m really grateful to Carl and Mr. Tafel for allowing me to stick with (Unshaded),” he said. “He’s a difficult horse to ride and they’ve trusted my judgment.
“I’ve tried to change my attitude. I don’t let the press get to me anymore. I’m not going to ride to please everyone else. I’m not embarrassed to admit I’m getting help about my anger management. I’m on medication. I’m mending fences with some of these trainers.”
Unshaded run the mile and a quarter in 2:02.2 to pay $8.90 as the second choice and key a $103 exacta. The trifecta, with Belmont Stakes winner Commendable holding for third, returned $698. Haskell winner Dixie Union, the 5-2 favorite, faded to fourth after racing close to the pace, completing a $4,043 superfecta.
With Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus not having run since losing the Preakness, and with Preakness winner Red Bullet out for the year, the race for the Eclipse Award as top 3-year-old is wide open.
Asked who tops the division now, Nafzger joked, “That’s not too hard to answer. Hell, we are. But seriously, he’s got to step up and keep winning to be the champion 3-year-old.”
The Oct. 14 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont and the Nov. 4 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs are likely targets.
