Louisville Tiz's next stop
Saratoga Springs
Travers night celebrations meant different things for different people.
After Tiz the Law smoked the field Saturday in the 151st running of the Travers Stakes, Jack Knowlton, the operating manager of Sackatoga Stable, which owns the colt, went deep into the night. His drink of choice was a Tiztini, a new concoction invented just this week in honor of the big horse.
Trainer Barclay Tagg honored the historic victory with a tamer observance of the triumph. He and assistant/partner Robin Smullen had a small gathering at a neighbor's yard, with a little wine and a juicy steak. Then, after a quick trip back to the barn to check on the horses, it was off to bed.
Knowlton rolled home much later.
When asked Sunday morning outside of Tagg's barn how much sleep he got, Knowlton offered this: "Not enough," he said, and he wasn't kidding.
"I probably was," Tagg said when asked if he was asleep before his owner. "I was up before Jack, too."
The mood was light and jovial at the Tagg compound on the Saratoga backstretch Sunday morning, and why shouldn't it be?
Tiz the Law's dominating Travers win put Knowlton, Tagg and Tiz the Law — sounds like a law firm, doesn't it? — squarely in the seat every horseman wants to be in heading into the Kentucky Derby, the role of favorite. Even though a horse named Art Collector easily won the Ellis Park Derby on Saturday — giving him two straight wins, the other being the Blue Grass at Keeneland last month — no one is going to deny that Tiz the Law will be the horse to beat in Louisville.
The Derby will be run Sept. 5 after it was postponed from the first Saturday in May because of the coronavirus pandemic.
"To be honest with you," Knowlton said, "I am not worried about anybody after what I saw (Saturday)."
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