Travers Stakes at Saratoga : He Won West Virginia Derby, Not Respect

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — Trainer Jerry Meyer went to the fall yearling sale at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky. in 1987 and bought four horses.

The most Meyer spent for any of them was $60,000. The least was $16,000 and that smallish colt, Doc’s Leader, has gone on to earn $247,778 in only 1 1/2 years.

All of this makes Doc’s Leader one of racing’s better bargains. But does it make him a legitimate candidate to be running in today’s $1-million Travers Stakes at Saratoga?

The West Virginia Derby two weeks ago, the Travers against Easy Goer today--this is more than a mere jump up in class.

The 61-year-old Meyer isn’t talking about winning the Travers, but then, realistically, neither are the trainers of the four other challengers to Easy Goer, the Belmont and Whitney Handicap winner who has earned $2 million. That’s more than the combined total of his five rivals.

Easy Goer will go off at 1-5 or less and the odds on Clever Trevor, Roi Danzig, Shy Tom, Le Voyageur and Doc’s Leader will range from 5-1 to much higher.

Doc’s Leader will be the longest price on the board, and should the colt win the price would certainly break the record that Adonis set when he paid $53.50 for upsetting another Belmont winner, Pavot, in the 1945 Travers.

Doc’s Leader wasn’t even the favorite when he won the West Virginia Derby on a sloppy track at Mountaineer Park on Aug. 6. Not having won a race in six tries this year, he went off at 7-1 before winning by five lengths over Halo Hansom. That race represented a swing of about 13 lengths, because Halo Hansom, in finishing second in the Jersey Derby on Memorial Day, was eight lengths better than Doc’s Leader, who came in seventh.

The Jersey Derby was only the second race back for Doc’s Leader after he underwent throat surgery for an entrapped epiglottis in April. Similar repairs did wonders for Tank’s Prospect, who won the 1985 Preakness, and Alysheba, who won the 1987 Kentucky Derby and was voted horse of the year in 1988, but it’s doubtful that even successful surgery can move Doc’s Leader up that much against Easy Goer.

Meyer, however, is undaunted.

“My horse can be a good horse on a given day,” the Canadian-born trainer said. “He could be an opportunist. If he could just get second or third, it would give him quite a bit of credibility when he goes to stud.”

Four of the six starters will earn purse money, with nominating, entry and starting fees boosting the total over the $1-million mark. The winner will receive $653,100, with $239,740, $130,620 and $65,310 going to the next three finishers. Doc’s Leader would come close to doubling his career earnings if he ran second.

Meyer didn’t even travel to Chester, W. Va., to see Doc’s Leader first victory in his last eight starts, or since he had won a minor stake at the Meadowlands eight months before. Meyer isn’t licensed to train in West Virginia, so Monte Clarke saddled the horse in his place.

The race that told Meyer he might have something more than a $16,000 yearling was the Remsen at Aqueduct last November. In a field of 15, Doc’s Leader finished fourth, following Fast Play, Fire Maker and Silver Sunsets and losing by less than four lengths.

“The Remsen field was the best in any 2-year-old race last year,” Meyer said. “The Breeders’ Cup Juvenile was one of the weakest. I thought it was the weakest 2-year-old race the Breeders’ Cup has had in the five years they’ve been running.”

Is It True won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile last year, beating Easy Goer in the mud at Churchill Downs. Easy Goer’s other improbable defeat, in the Kentucky Derby, was also in the mud.

Meyer would like to see the same kind of track today that Saratoga had two weeks ago for the Alabama, when Open Mind won in mud while his filly, Rose Park, beat only one horse.

“I didn’t want mud for Rose Park, and she got it,” Meyer said. “Mud would help my horse in the Travers.”

There have been different Travers weather forecasts for the last three days, with the latest calling for partly cloudy skies, no rain and a high temperature of about 80.

Doc’s Leader has a style similar to Easy Goer’s, coming from off the pace. Clever Trevor, who comes into the Travers with a two-race winning streak, is expected to be the pace-setter.

“Maybe Easy Goer is a foregone conclusion, but the money for second isn’t bad,” Meyer said. “One thing I know about my horse is that he’s 100% sound, and you can’t always say that about those high-profile horses.”

Doc’s Leader’s sire, Mr. Leader, also sired Wise Times, the upset winner of the Travers in 1986. Meyer recalled the 1982 Travers, when Runaway Groom, paying $27.80, defeated Conquistador Cielo, the Belmont winner and a horse that had been syndicated for breeding for a record $38 million before his defeat here.

“They were lucky they syndicated him before the race,” Meyer said. “He wouldn’t have been worth half that after the race.”

Horse Racing Notes

Two of the Travers jockeys, Bill Fox aboard Doc’s Leader and Don Pettinger astride Clever Trevor, have never ridden in the stake and Pettinger has never ridden at Saratoga. . . . Pat Day, aboard Easy Goer, and Eddie Maple, Roi Danzig’s jockey, have each ridden two Travers winners. . . . Shug McGaughey, who trains Easy Goer, said that the plans are to keep racing him as a 4-year-old.

Clever Trevor is trying to become the fifth gelding to win the Travers, and the first since Holding Pattern in 1974. . . . In another race on the Travers card, the $75,000 King’s Bishop, Fast Play is favored to beat Houston at seven furlongs. . . . Sewickley carries high weight of 119 pounds Sunday in the $100,000 Forego Handicap at seven furlongs.

Blushing John, winner of the Pimlico Special and the Hollywood Gold Cup on dirt, ran a distant last in the Arlington Handicap on grass and will remain on dirt the rest of the year, skipping the Arlington Million. . . . At Saratoga on Friday, a crowd of 29,340 bet $4.3 million--a record at the track for a weekday--and Double Bill, part of a three-horse entry, won the New York Turf Writers Cup for steeplechasers. Favored Uptown Swell was second, beaten by 1 1/2 lengths, and the rest of the Double Bill entry, Polar Pleasure and Jimmy Lorenzo, finished third and fourth, respectively.