A Little Warm is lukewarm Travers favorite over Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver

A Little Warm is Travers favorite over Super Saver

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — So, Super Saver, what have you done lately?

Four months and two losses after winning the Kentucky Derby, Super Saver has been relegated to a 6-1 co-third betting choice for Saturday’s $1 million Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course.

Jim Dandy Stakes winner A Little Warm is the lukewarm 7-2 favorite, with Trappe Shot at 4-1 and Afleet Express also at 6-1 in a field of 11 3-year-olds.

Favorite or not, the racing manager for Super Saver’s owners says it’s time for the Derby winner to show he can return to the winner’s circle.

“He’s got to step up,” WinStar Farms’ Elliott Walden said at Wednesday’s post position draw. “We’ll let him do the talking. He’s set up to run very, very well.”

Super Saver ran eighth in the Preakness two weeks after the Derby, then finished fourth in the Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on Aug. 1.

“The second race off the layoff is typically his best,” Walden said. “We hope he learned something off the Haskell and will have a good race.”

Super Saver drew the outside No. 11 post for the 1 1/4-mile “Midsummer Derby,” and will be ridden by Calvin Borel.

“Sometimes, the No. 11 might be a little further out than you’d ideally like, but I think at 1¼ miles it’s OK,” Super Saver’s trainer Todd Pletcher said. “You get a decent run to the first turn, so Calvin should have the option to kind of survey everything inside him.”

Lookin At Lucky won’t be there. The Preakness and Haskell winner, and the leader in the 3-year-old division, isn’t running and that has created a wide-open field for the 141st running of the Travers Stakes.

In addition to the Derby winner, there’s the runners-up from the Derby, Preakness and Belmont (Ice Box, First Dude and Fly Down, respectively), several late bloomers who missed the Triple Crown races (A Little Warm, Friend of Foe, Trappe Shot) and Admiral Alex is making his second career start after winning his debut.

Super Saver will be the 18th Derby winner since 1900 to compete in the Travers. Of the previous 17, only five did not go off as the favorite. Then again, the last three Derby winners who ran in the Travers came away winners — Sea Hero in 1993, Thunder Gulch in 1995 and Street Sense in 2007.

A Little Warm moved into the spotlight with a 1¾-length victory over Miner’s Reserve in the Jim Dandy, and has proven to trainer Tony Dutrow he can handle longer distances.

A Little Warm, with John Velazquez aboard, will leave from the No. 5 post. Handling the Travers distance, though, will be a new experience.

“We’re in uncharted waters there, but our choice is to take this step with him, and so we’re looking forward to the Travers with him,” Dutrow said, adding that he “couldn’t feel any better about the horse’s ability or how he’s going into this race.”

Leon Blusiewicz, who owns and trains Admiral Alex, says he’s won a Grade 1 race off a maiden win debut before, with Snow Plow in 1981.

“So I don’t think that I’m in deep,” he said.

Nick Zito trains three horses in the field — Fly Down, Ice Box and Miner’s Reserve.

The field, from the rail out is: Miner’s Reserve (David Cohen, 12-1); Trappe Shot (Alan Garcia, 4-1); Admiral Alex (Kent Desormeaux,12-1); First Dude (Ramon Dominguez, 8-1); A Little Warm (John Velazquez, 7-2); Ice Box (Julien Leparoux, 10-1); Afleet Express (Javier Castellano, 6-1); Fly Down (Jose Lezcano, 8-1): Friend Or Foe (Rajiv Maragh, 15-1); Afleet Again (Cornelio Velasquez, 30-1); and Super Saver (Calvin Borel, 6-1).