Most people who know me know that I am obsessed with the Travers. The problem is that I usually have no idea how to handicap this perpetually frustrating race. So, I took a look at all of the starters and dug up their TA Premium past performances in order to see if I could find a way to separate them.

The TA Indicator is a very powerful tool once you figure out how to adjust it’s rating depending on the angles that you find in the past performances. This is why you need to study the past performances and incorporate the TA Indicator into your handicapping.

Let’s apply this handicapping style to the Travers:

Ulanbotor, Viva Majorca and Commanding Curve all have TA Indicators that are too low to overcome and hence, they will be thrown out immediately.

Now, let’s look for horses that are most likely to bounce and subtract 2.00 from their TA Indicator. Bayern will probably bounce do to his runaway Haskell performance. Sure, Baffert knows how to keep a horse fresh, but even someone with the training acumen of Bob Baffert can’t take a horse who emptied his tank a few weeks ago and get him ready for the biggest race of his life. It also has to be noted that Baffert’s biggest successes have come with sturdier horses who can handle Baffert’s intense training style. Tonalist has had enough time to recuperate from the Jim Dandy, but has been drilling way too hard for this race and seems to be a bit spent at this point. Clement is a great trainer, but it looks like he is pushing Tonalist too hard. As much as I like Tonalist, lets subtract 2.00 from his TA Indicator as well.

Let’s add .75 to every horse in the field who hasn’t been eliminated and has the ideal running style for the expected pace scenario.

I wouldn’t have said this three months ago, but Wicked Strong has the ideal running style for this race. Jerkens has successfully converted this closer into a pure stalker and has been rewarded with a win in the Jim Dandy. You know that Wicked will stalk the pace again and that this tactic can only help his chances. Mr. Speaker was a deep closer in his most recent effort, but that was simply because the race was on turf. On dirt, Mr. Speaker prefers to adopt the classical stalking style as evidenced in the Lexington. He can be as far back as 5 lengths in the early going or as close as 1 length depending on what Jose Lezcano feels is most appropriate. V.E. Day usually sits far back, but the change from Jose Lezcano to Javier Castellano will probably result in a more classical stalking style, as this is what Castellano feels most comfortable with. I have often criticized Castellano of forcing all of his horses to be stalkers rather than letting them find their stride, bit this time Castellano’s forcefulness may actually benefit V.E. Day, who needs to get into the race early if he is to have a shot at winning.

So lets take a look at our adjusted ranking so far:

-We eliminated Commanding Curve, Ulanbator and Viva Majorca because their respective TA Indicators weren’t high enough.

– We subtracted 1.75 from the TA Indicators of Bayern and Tonalist because of their likelihood to bounce

– We added .75 to the TA Indicators of Mr. Speaker, Wicked Strong and V.E. Day because of their running style and how they look coming into the race.

Here are the adjusted TA Indicators for each horse:

So, our adjusted TA Indicators show a close race between Mr. Speaker and V.E. Day with Tonalist in third. Personally, I like Wicked Strong to get a piece of the money, so I will be playing the race as follows:

Win: Mr. Speaker

Place: V.E. Day

Show: Wicked Strong