Java Gold Is Sparkling in Soggy Travers Stakes

Java Gold had three different jockeys ride him until Pat Day climbed on his back to stay in June.

Mack Miller, the 3-year-old colt’s soft-spoken trainer, talked about that at his remote barn on the Saratoga backstretch early last week.

“I don’t want to go into the specifics,” Miller said, “but let it go that Pat is quite a rider. He can do it all. It’s funny that he rides in the Midwest considering how good he is.”

The 118th Travers Stakes was run as a $1-million race for the first time at Saratoga Saturday, and it was not surprising to find Day in the winner’s circle again.

While Miller was complimentary toward his 33-year-old rider a few days ago, he was downright laudatory Saturday, after Day’s presence aboard Java Gold helped get Paul Mellon’s colt to the wire two lengths ahead of Cryptoclearance.

But the $1.12-million Travers was run in a steady rain and tarnished by a sloppy track that compromised the chances of at least three of the big guns in the nine-horse field.

Day might be a Chicago and Kentucky rider, but when the big races are run, he’s only a plane ride away. He had survived a three-horse squeeze at the wire in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Hollywood Park in 1984 to win racing’s first $3-million race with Wild Again. Last year at Santa Anita, for the $1-million Breeders’ Cup Distaff, there was Day again posing for a picture in the winner’s circle, this time on the back of Lady’s Secret.

Java Gold, whose sire, Key to the Mint, won the Travers in 1972--when Miller, not yet training for Mellon, finished second with Tentam--may be better than the rest of the 3-year-olds, anyway. But the trainers of Alysheba and Bet Twice, who successfully danced the Triple Crown dances, are bound to want another shot, sans goo, at the colt who skipped the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness and missed the Belmont because of a virus.

Cryptoclearance, fourth, third and second in the Triple Crown races after winning the Florida Derby, is another horse who relishes off tracks, and Saturday he finished 6 3/4 lengths ahead of Polish Navy. Polish Navy had 1 1/2 lengths on Gulch, who was followed by Bet Twice, Alysheba, Fortunate Moment, Temperate Sil and Gorky. Alysheba, the Derby and Preakness winner, went off the 5-2 favorite of the rain-soaked crowd of 45,055 and Bet Twice, who beat Alysheba in the Belmont and Haskell after being second in both the Derby and the Preakness, was the third choice at 4-1.

Java Gold was 3-1, based on his 4-for-5 record this year, his two victories in the mud and his convincing win over Gulch and Broad Brush, the handicap star, in the Whitney Handicap here two weeks ago.

Java Gold, running 1 miles Saturday in 2:02, paid $6.40, $5.40 and $3.80. Cryptoclearance paid $6.40 and $3.80, and Polish Navy’s show price was $5. A $2 exacta on Java Gold and Cryptoclearance returned $90.60 and a $2 triple on the first three finishers was worth $526.

Java Gold, who has 8 wins, 2 seconds and 1 third in 13 career starts, earned more money--$673,800--than he had previously made in his career, mushrooming his overall total to $1.2 million.

After three-quarters of a mile, the horses that finished first and second were last and next to last, with Cryptoclearance 14 1/2 lengths behind Temperate Sil and Java Gold trailing by 15 1/2.

Day and Angel Cordero, riding Cryptoclearance for the first time, were in no hurry.

“Pat Day is so great,” Miller said later. “He has the patience and never gets unnerved. He had him outside where he was supposed to be, and when this horse changes leads (shifting his lead foot from one to the other), he kicks in and it works. The ride was the big thing. I just love Pat Day.”

Day was wearing three pairs of goggles, flipping down a fresh set as the mud from the front-runners smudged them.

“The third pair had a lot of dirt on them, but there was room enough to see where the wire was,” Day said.

Temperate Sil’s chances were hurt by both the mud and the fact that Gorky, the undistinguished part of the Gulch entry, fought him for the lead for the first six furlongs.

Gorky faded to last by the time the field reached the stretch. Temperate Sil was also dropping back and now only four horses had a chance to win. Polish Navy had the rail and the lead, but Cryptoclearance, three wide, got 1 1/2 lengths in front at the eighth pole. Bet Twice, uncomfortable with the mud all the way around, was in between them, getting the lead for an instant but unable to sustain a lengthy rally.

“I didn’t know if I could win, because I didn’t know if there was a horse behind me,” Cordero said. “The other horse just ran too good today.”

Day was whipping Java Gold vigorously from their four-wide position at the top of the stretch, but when they passed Cryptoclearance with about a sixteenth of a mile to go, it took only three taps from the jockey to get the winner home safely.

Day rode Java Gold last year when he won the Remsen, his first major victory, at Aqueduct. This year, however, with Miller and Mellon deciding to bypass the Derby with a colt who didn’t turn 3 until early April, Day’s Triple Crown meal ticket was to be Demons Begone. That colt went off favored in the Derby, but bled and did not finish. He then was retired for the year after only one more start.

“This horse was a big, dumb 2-year-old,” Day said of Java Gold. “But it was always just a question of whether he’d grow up.

“Today, I had one glimpse of the leaders going down the backside and I wasn’t really concerned. The best horses in America only have a real good run of a quarter of a mile, and I knew I had to ride my horse the way that was best for him, which is to let him make his move at the five-sixteenths pole. This colt would run well over broken bottles. He’s certainly handled every track I’ve ever ridden him on.”

The riders of Bet Twice and Alysheba weren’t as fortunate.

“My horse broke well, and that’s all he did,” said Chris McCarron, aboard Alysheba. “I couldn’t get him up into the bridle, and he obviously didn’t care for the going.”

About two hours before the Travers, Bet Twice was fitted with mud caulks, special shoes that are supposed to give a horse a better grip on an off track.

“He had no problem with the surface, the problem was with the mud hitting him in the face,” said Craig Perret, Bet Twice’s jockey.

It was the first time Bet Twice had run on an off track. “Every time he’d get hit in the face, he’d throw his head up,” Perret said. “Then when he did do some running, he got to thinking that he might get hit again.”

Java Gold also wore mud caulks. “There’s a risk (of injury) using them,” Mack Miller said, “but they worked.”

Miller had an unbeatable combination: A horse with a victory over the track, a horse who loves mud, a jockey who gave him a heady ride and top opponents whose powers are diminished by slop. All that added up to an open and shut case in the richest Travers.

Horse Racing Notes

Java Gold’s victory was the fourth Travers win for owner Paul Mellon, who also won the race with Quadrangle in 1964, Arts and Letters in 1969 and Key to the Mint in 1972. Mellon has started only two other horses in the stake, Farewell Party finishing seventh in 1971 and Music of Time running 11th in 1977. . . . George D. Widener owned five horses that won the Travers, and the Dwyer brothers had four winners of the stake before the turn of the century. . . . It was trainer Mack Miller’s first Travers win. “There was Fit To Fight,” Miller said, “but this caps what he did.” In 1984, Fit To Fight became only the fourth horse to sweep three Belmont Park handicaps--the Metropolitan, the Suburban and the Brooklyn. . . . Pat Day rode his first Travers winner, Play Fellow, in 1983. . . . Miller said that Java Gold’s next start will be in the Marlboro Cup at Belmont Sept. 20. “We’re skipping the Woodward there,” the trainer said. “We need to give him and me a rest.” . . . Miller saddled another stakes winner Saturday at Saratoga, his Jack of Clubs taking the $75,000 Bold Reason Handicap. Jack of Clubs was also owned by Mellon and ridden by Day. . . . In other stakes on the Travers program, Robbie Davis rode Funistrada to victory in the Revidere Handicap and Chris McCarron won the King’s Bishop with Templar Hill. . . . Heavily favored Creme Fraiche just missed catching Jack of Clubs at the wire. In the Saratoga jockey race, Jose Santos holds a four-win lead over Angel Cordero.