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By Nicholas Godfrey

USA: Tiz The Law was in good order on Sunday morning after “terrorising the competition” in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga, reported his trainer Barclay Tagg.

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America’s top three-year-old earned a career-best Beyer speed figure of 109 for his five-length romp in the $1 million contest, after which British bookmakers went odds-on for the rescheduled Kentucky Derby on September 5.

Tiz The Law has also usurped Pacific Classic-bound Maximum Security as favourite for the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

“I was very pleased with the way he ran,” said Tagg, clearly a master of understatement. “He did everything a good horse ought to do and did it perfectly.

Travers triumph: Tiz The Law simply stunning at Saratoga

“I pictured the horse being at his best laying second or third in the two path just off the leader and I figured the leader would be Baffert’s horse,” the trainer went on, speaking to the NYRA media team. “We discussed that and that’s exactly what he “[jockey Manny Franco] did.”

Unbeaten in four starts this year, Tiz The Law was completing a G1 hat-trick in the Travers after winning the Florida Derby and Belmont Stakes. “He seems to terrorize the competition when he makes his move,” Tagg said. 

“Every race I’ve seen, even the first one, has been great. He came off that turn, and I thought ‘They’re going to run by him like he’s standing still’ and then I look again and he’s three in front. It was the same way yesterday. I thought, ‘Get into him, Manny’ and he just kept running, running, running.”

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Travers Stakes runner-up Caracaro is also headed for the Kentucky Derby according to trainer Gustavo Delgado. “Of course we know there’s a freak horse around,” he said. “We do think that our horse still has a lot of room for improvement. He’s still developing, you can tell, and we were asking a lot from him.

“I consider Tiz the Law the best horse in the country,” added Delgado. “In the Travers, they were all good horses. It was his second race after the six months and to run second again was very good for us.”

On the other side of the country at Del Mar, Maximum Security earned top billing in his latest workout for Bob Baffert ahead of the G1 Pacific Classic on August 22. The four-year-old was clocked at 1m12.80s for a 6f spin.

“He worked the best he has worked for me,” Baffert told the track’s media team via text. “Right on schedule for the Pacific Classic. A very impressive breeze.”

• Visit the NYRA Saratoga website

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