Kentucky Derby Alumni at the Travers: Do Derby Winners Win the Midsummer Derby?

The Travers Stakes has been around since 1864, and the Kentucky Derby has existed since 1875. Yet fewer horses have won both races than have won the Triple Crown – 11 compared to 13. So what’s going on?

It’s worth trying to analyze this link as we head to another Travers, where Golden Tempo attempts to become the 12th dual winner. What do the statistics tell us about the two races?

A rarely attempted double – Until recent years

As mentioned above, the list of Kentucky Derby winners that go on to win the Travers has just 11 horses – and at one point there was a 51-year gap between them:

One of the reasons, amazingly, is that according to New York Racing Association records, only 29 Kentucky Derby winners have attempted the double. There have been more horses (33) to contest the Belmont with a chance of winning the Triple Crown than have attempted this double. The races are nearly four months apart, but this is still an interesting number.

NYRA says more Preakness winners (33) have contested the Travers than Derby winners, though the record for them is even worse; just seven (Duke of Magenta, Grenada, Man o’ War, Native Dancer, Damascus, Point Given, and Bernardini) completed that double. It’s a different story for the Belmont; 69 horses attempted the in-state double, and 33 were successful.

Of the 29 horses that have attempted the Kentucky Derby-Travers double in the 144 years that it was possible, eight have been in the last 19 years. Only two of those (Orb and American Pharoah) contested all three Triple Crown races; perhaps the modern tendency not to attempt all three Classics leaves a horse in better condition to reappear at Saratoga.

Derby runners are faring well in the Travers

However, what if we extend our analysis to include the record of Kentucky Derby starters in the Travers Stakes? After all, if the gap between the two races were the problem, you’d expect all horses that ran in the Kentucky Derby after the demanding prep races, and not just the winner, might then struggle to be at their peak again in late August at Saratoga.

To examine this, we’re going to look at records going back to 1991, mainly because that's how far back Equibase charts for both races go. The only year that won’t be considered is the COVID year of 2020, when the Travers was run before the Derby.

Comparing these records presents a somewhat different picture. It suggests that if a runner from the Derby contests the Travers, they are more likely to win than those that haven’t.

Of the 34 editions we are considering, only 11 Derby winners contested the Travers. During this time, 103 of the 291 three-year-olds that raced in the Travers had been Kentucky Derby starters, or 35.4% of all runners, while 188, or 64.6 %, had not. Only the 1997 Travers in this period had no Derby starters.

Yet in these 34 years, 21.5 of the winners had contested the Kentucky Derby – a strike rate of 63.2 %. That means according to these statistics, a Kentucky Derby runner has been nearly twice as likely as a non-Derby runner to win the Travers.

It’s also notable that when the Travers is not won by a Kentucky Derby runner, there is at least one Derby runner that goes close, as this table shows:

So if the best-placed Derby runner doesn’t win, they tend to finish second (eight times) or third (twice). Only in 2010 did the best-placed Derby runner finish out of the top three.

As the table shows, it isn’t necessarily one of the horses that figured in the finish of the Kentucky Derby that does best in the Travers among Derby runners. Indeed, most of them – especially prior to 2019 – hadn’t been in the top three in the Derby.

Another perspective on this can be seen in the chart below, which looks at the Travers placing of the highest-placed Kentucky Derby finisher to run in the Travers:

The 13 horses highlighted are those in which the Travers starter that performed best in the Derby was also the highest-placed horse in the Travers among Derby starters. However, it’s worth noting that of those 13, five – Victory Gallop, Medaglia d’Oro, Bluegrass Cat, Street Sense, and Sovereignty – were the only Derby runners to start in the Travers.

This year, the 10-horse Travers field features four Derby contestants: the first three home (Golden Tempo, Renegade, and Ocelli), along with Derby 10th-place finisher Emerging Market. History suggests at least one of them will go close to winning – though it isn’t always the one you expect.