Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin LOUISVILLE, KY - MAY 03: Thorpedo Anna with jockey Brian J. Hernandez Jr. aboard wins the 150th .
.. [+] running of the Kentucky Oaks on May 3, 2024, at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.
(Photo by Jeff Moreland/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) Icon Sportswire via Getty Images That the formidable Belmont winner Dornoch is the narrow 9-5 favorite going into the 155th running of the $1.2 million Travers Stakes later this afternoon is just the barest indication of the splendid depth of the field he faces. Obviously, that narrowness will be refined and re-refined as the windows at Saratoga open and the money marches on toward post time.
But given this field’s compact, talent-rich field and Dornoch’s razor-thin purchase on it , there’s really very little that looking at the money can say this afternoon to help us pierce through what Colonel Sir Lonsdale Hill called, in his landmark 1896 book on military strategy, the “fog of war.” By that classic epigram Col. Hill meant the difficulty presented by combat itself to any commander attempting to assess the strength and position of the arrayed forces.
A more apt description of attempting to handicap the 2024 Travers can’t be had. Said another way, the threats to Dornoch’s quite skinny implied probability of victory — 28.5%, according to the morning line odds — come from all over the map.
In Fierceness, Dornoch has a rival right up in his stylebook. In Thorpedo Anna .