THE TRAVERS STAKES

The Travers Stakes is a mile and a quarter on the dirt for three-year-olds at Saratoga Race Course, in Saratoga Springs, run on a Saturday late in August as the centrepiece of the summer meet: one race late on a long card, which in 2026 carried five other graded stakes. First run in 1864, it is the oldest stakes race in the country for three-year-olds, three years older than the Belmont Stakes and more than a decade older than the Kentucky Derby. It is called the Midsummer Derby.

Each year the winning owner’s colours are painted on a canoe on the infield lake, and it floats there until the next Travers.

The Midsummer Derby

The race is named for William R. Travers, a lawyer and investor, who was among the men who made the course with John Morrissey, John Hunter and Leonard Jerome, and was its first president. His own horse, Kentucky, won the first running in 1864. Fillies won three of the first five; Ruthless, who won in 1867, had also won the first Belmont Stakes. The last filly to win was Lady Rotha, in 1915.

It was not run in 1896, in 1898, 1899 and 1900, or in 1911 and 1912, and during the war it was run at Belmont Park, from 1943 to 1945. It has been run over a mile and a quarter since 1904.

Saratoga is called the Graveyard of Champions, and two of the defeats behind the name came in the Travers. In 1930 Gallant Fox, the Triple Crown winner, was beaten by Jim Dandy at a hundred to one. In 2015 American Pharoah, the Triple Crown winner of that year, was beaten by Keen Ice. Whirlaway, in 1941, is the only winner of the Triple Crown to have won the Travers. In 1921 Arnold Rothstein’s Sporting Blood won after Grey Lag was scratched; Rothstein had bet $150,000 and took nearly half a million in winnings and purse. In 1962 Jaipur and Ridan ran head to head the whole way, and Jaipur won by a nose. In 1978 Affirmed was first past the post and disqualified, and the race was given to Alydar.

The record crowd, 60,486, came in 2001 to see Point Given. In 2015 the crowd was capped at fifty thousand, and the day sold out for the first time. Arrogate won in 2016 by thirteen and a half lengths, in 1:59.36, the stakes record. Javier Castellano has won it seven times, more than any other jockey.

The Day

In 2026 the gates opened at nine and the first race went off a little after eleven; the Travers came late in the day, at 6.35, and the last race at 7.09. Colts and geldings carry a hundred and twenty-six pounds and fillies a hundred and twenty-one. In 2026 the purse was $1.25 million, and the winner took $687,500.

The winner is given the Man o’ War Cup, made by Tiffany & Co. for the match race of 1920 between Man o’ War and Sir Barton, given to the race in 1936 and presented every year since. The horse wears a blanket of red and white carnations, some ten feet long and fifteen hundred flowers, with a white “T”, made the night before by a florist in the town. The owner’s silks are painted on a lawn jockey that stands at the entrance to the course for the year, and on the canoe. Old newspaper reports mention a canoe in the infield lake; “some saw it as a sign that the racing season was near, while others speculated that the vessel would provide unlucky bettors transportation home via the Hudson River.” In 1962 racegoers found its blue paint covered with the colours of Calumet Farm, whose Beau Prince had won the Travers of 1961, and every winner since has had its turn. When Alpha and Golden Ticket dead-heated in 2012, two canoes were put on the lake.

In 2026 the 157th Travers was run on Saturday 29 August. Leading Change, unbeaten in two starts before it, won at ten to one by half a length from the Preakness winner, Napoleon Solo, in 2:02.98, for Wathnan Racing, the trainer Brad Cox and the jockey Manny Franco. Golden Tempo, who had won the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, was third.

What to Know

It is run on a Saturday late in August, near the end of the Saratoga meet. The 2027 date has not been announced; NYRA expects to return that year to a meet of forty days at Saratoga.

In 2026 general admission was $7 in advance and $10 at the gate, and it covers the backyard, the grandstand, the clubhouse and the apron; picnics and coolers are allowed. Of the reserved-seat flex plans, only the one of ten days or more can include Travers Day. The 1863 Club has suites on the third floor for thirty to forty-five guests, with a balcony and an attendant, and on the second floor the Founders Room, “Saratoga’s very own membership club experience”. The clubhouse boxes, along the front of the clubhouse, go first to horsemen, and only a few are released.

NYRA publishes a code. In the boxes, the 1863 Club and the Turf Terrace a collared shirt is required, with a suit or sports jacket optional, or in the boxes encouraged; elsewhere it asks for neat casual attire. A lounge suit. NYRA itself holds that a properly fitting jacket is paramount, that ties are optional, and that “There is no such thing as being overdressed at Saratoga.”

Amtrak runs from Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station to Saratoga Springs; by car it is about three hours from New York, and Albany airport is half an hour away. The course is at 267 Union Avenue. Stay at the Adelphi on Broadway, opened in 1877 and restored and expanded for $90 million, with sixty-five rooms.

The mistake is to come to the boxes dressed for the backyard: “No jeans, shorts, rompers, or abbreviated wear permitted.”

The Court

The Travers Stakes is not the Court’s own. A box or a suite in the 1863 Club is sought on a member’s behalf, and the Court arranges the whole of it: getting there, where to stay in the town, and the table afterward. The Court is at Saratoga in July for the opening weekend.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.