KINGSTON, Jamaica - A Derby is the lone race that evaded champion Essential Quality. The Belmont Stakes hero now boasts a Derby on his ledger after all, this one of the Midsummer variety.
Essential Quality outlasted Midnight Bourbon in a stretch duel Saturday to win the Grade 1, US$1.25 million Travers Stakes. The 3-year-old Tapit colt covered 1¼ miles at Saratoga in 2:01.96 under jockey Luis Saez, returning US$2.90 as the 2-5 favourite.
Trained by Brad Cox, Essential Quality improved to a sparkling 9: 8-0-0 since his debut last September. His only loss was a fourth-place effort in May at Churchill Downs in the Kentucky Derby.
Midnight Bourbon, the Preakness Stakes runner-up, set comfortable fractions Saturday of 24.18, 48.96 and 1:14.49 through the first six furlongs. Essential Quality engaged that one at the top of the stretch and put a head in front by the wire.
Running behind the top two were Miles D in third and Keepmeinmind in fourth.
Cox, the 2020 Eclipse Award winner for outstanding trainer, won his first Travers. Saez, leading jockey during Saratoga’s 2021 meet, earned his second Travers score after also winning in 2013 with Will Take Charge.
Essential Quality now owns a quartet of exciting wins this season that came by way of stretch duels. He battled his way past Highly Motivated in April’s Blue Grass Stakes (G2), Hot Rod Charlie in June’s Belmont and Keepmeinmind in last month’s Jim Dandy Stakes (G2).
