National Treasure

The Preakness winner should be among those leading the field into the first turn on Saturday as he possesses good early speed, and the addition of blinkers has accentuated his best feature. His effort at the Belmont Stakes certainly left a lot to be desired, but it is easy to excuse a dull effort when running 12 furlongs on three weeks rest. His trainer, Bob Baffert, has won the Travers three times and done it twice with gate-to-wire winners. If he gets loose on the lead and can set his own pace, then he could take them all the way round as the son of Quality Road has good late pace figures. He has been working well at Del Mar leading into the race and should be an attractive price for a Triple Crown race winner.