Saratoga's biggest race of the summer turned into a gut-punch for the Barstool gambling crew. The DraftKings Travers Stakes was billed as a rematch between Renegade and Golden Tempo, and the desk showed up early to break it down.
We get @RepoleStable thoughts on Renegade ahead of The Travers
There was real reason to like Renegade going in. He'd already handed Golden Tempo a measure of revenge, closing furiously to beat Commandment by a half-length in the Jim Dandy on August 1 — a result that flipped the finish of the Belmont Stakes, where Golden Tempo won and Renegade came home third. His résumé also included a runner-up finish in the Kentucky Derby, losing by a neck to Golden Tempo. The 2 were set to meet again in the 157th Travers, this time with Preakness winner Napoleon Solo and rising longshots like Baby Vino and Leading Change also in the field.
30k on Renegade 2k exacta box Baby Vino with 3,5,7,9
Portnoy went all in on that storyline. $30,000 to win on Renegade, plus a $2,000 exacta box pairing Baby Vino with horses 3, 5, 7 and 9 — a bet built to cash multiple ways if the favorites underperformed or the field got shuffled late. It's the kind of ticket that either pays for the trip or turns the whole day into a story about what went wrong.
Painful ending for the crew at Travers @dkhorse #dkpartner
It went wrong. Leading Change, a 12-1 shot trained by Brad Cox and ridden by Manny Franco, ran off with the win — the kind of result that blows up a ticket built around the Golden Tempo-Renegade rivalry. Renegade's bid for a second straight signature win at Saratoga didn't get there, and neither did the exacta box.
For a desk that leaned this hard into one storyline, the finish stings more than a normal bad-beat day. Renegade's connections, including Repole Stable, will get another shot to atlas back into the classic conversation down the road, but the Travers was supposed to be the redemption chapter — not another line in the loss column.