By Tim Wilkin
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.–Just over seven weeks ago, National Treasure (Quality Road) made his claim as the best older in the country when he rolled in the GI Metropolitan Handicap at Saratoga Race Course.
Trained by Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, National Treasure dominated five others on the way to a 6 1/4-length win.
What can he do for an encore? We'll find out Saturday when Baffert saddles National Treasure–the 9-5 morning-line favorite–in the 97th running of the $1 million GI Whitney Stakes at the Spa. The race is a “Win and You're In” for the GI Breeders' Cup Classic at Del Mar in November.
Baffert doesn't ship a horse across the country unless he thinks he has a big chance. And National Treasure certainly has that. He arrived in Saratoga on Tuesday.
“We are in the business to have these top-quality horses,” Baffert said by phone from his summer base at Del Mar in California. “There are a lot of expectations, coming out of my barn, when you have a horse like that. That's why we are in the business, to play at that level. The same goes for all those other big trainers back there.”
Owned by SF Racing, LLC, Starlight Racing, Madaket Stables LLC, Robert E. Masterson, Stonestreet Stables LLC, Jay A. Schoenfarber, Waves Edge Capital LLC and Catherine Donovan, National Treasure is at the top of several lists when it comes to the older male division.
He has had just three starts this year but has two big wins. Beside the Met Mile, he also won the GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational at Gulfstream Park in his first start as a 4-year-old. What followed was a fourth in the Group 1 Saudi Cup at King Abdulaziz Racecourse in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
“His Pegasus was terrific,” Baffert said. “We shipped him probably a little bit too soon (to Dubai), but we had to take a crack at it.”
In the Met Mile, National Treasure had little resistance as Flavien Prat let his mount do his thing. Baffert is not too concerned about the added distance in the Whitney. That race is 1 1/8 miles.
The Pegasus World Cup Invitational was also run at 1 1/8 miles. In three other attempts at the distance in his career, National Treasure has finished fourth in all of them.
It's no secret that National Treasure does his best running on the front end–“pace makes the race,” Baffert said–and that is likely where he'll be in the Whitney.
“We are going to stretch his speed out a little bit further and see if he can handle it,” said Baffert, who won back-to-back editions of the Whitney in 2019 with McKinzie and 2020 with Improbable.
There are 11 other signed up to challenge National Treasure, three of them from Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher. He will saddle Bright Future (Curlin, 5-1), Crupi (Curlin, 15-1) and Charge It (Tapit, 30-1).
“I think (the division (is pretty wide open),” Pletcher said outside his barn on the Oklahoma Training Track. “National Treasure is certainly the divisional leader, but I don't think he has a death grip on it.”
Last year, National Treasure only won once in seven tries, but it was a big one. He went gate-to-wire to win the GI Preakness Stakes and then finished the year with four straight Grade I races.
He was sixth in the Belmont Stakes, fifth in the Travers Stakes and fourth in the Awesome Again before closing the season with a gut-wrenching loss by a nose to Cody's Wish in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile.
Losing that race might have done more for National Treasure than winning the Preakness. Heading into 2024, National Treasure got on more people's radar. Of course, it has helped that the brown colt, who went for $500,000 at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton New York Yearling Sale, has won some major races.
“He was a whisker away from beating Cody's Wish,” Baffert said. “He has always been a good horse, but people didn't pay attention to him. Once you win a sexy race like the Pegasus or the Met Mile, you start getting paid attention to.”
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