Saturday is Travers Stakes day at Saratoga and who better to headline the meeting’s richest card than Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense.

Track officials have been banging the drum loudly about attracting a Churchill Downs hero to the Spa for the first time since Thunder Gulch came, saw and conquered the 10-furlong Travers in 1995, even though the shadow of the Breeders’ Cup has pruned the field of most significant competition.Moreover, trainer Carl Nafzger and jockey Calvin Borel, who have taken Saratoga by storm with their unassuming manner, have a chance at some personal history. Last week, Nafzger sent out Lady Joanne to win the Alabama Stakes with a huge assist from Borel, who kept favored Octave bottled up in a demonstration of race riding that the stewards approved following an inquiry. They can add their names to previous teams that have won both Saratoga showpieces in the same year.

The training double has been accomplished only six times, the last in 1976 by Leroy Jolley with Mr. And Mrs. Bertram Firestone’s Optimistic Gal and Honest Pleasure. Four years earlier, Elliott Burch won with a pair of Rokeby Stable stalwarts, Summer Guest and Key to the Mint. Sixteen jockeys have turned the feat, including Bill Shoemaker and Eddie Arcaro, with Javier Castellano — who partnered Pine Island and Bernardini last season — being the latest.

Street Sense’s mission should be accomplished with a minimum of fuss. The trainers of Curlin, Hard Spun, and Any Given Saturday, leery of another shootout just three weeks after the Haskell Invitational, all passed the $1 million race and Tiago, who scratched from Sunday’s Pacific Classic, didn’t make the trip. That leaves C P West and Sightseeing as the biggest obstacles.

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