Saratoga got another reminder Saturday why they call it the Graveyard of Champions. In the hundred and fifty-seventh Travers Stakes, a ten-to-one colt with only two prior starts ran down a Preakness winner and left the Kentucky Derby and Belmont winner settling for third.

Leading Change

Leading Change, trained by Brad Cox and ridden by Manny Franco, wore down Napoleon Solo in the final sixteenth and won the Grade One, one-point-two-five-million-dollar Midsummer Derby by a half-length. The time for a mile and a quarter on a fast track was two minutes, two and ninety-eight hundredths. He paid twenty-two seventy-six to win.

Golden Tempo

Golden Tempo, the favorite after winning the Derby and Belmont, rallied from far back and finished third. The Puma was fourth. Sea Strike faded to sixth after pressing the pace. Renegade, the Derby runner-up and Jim Dandy winner, never fired and finished eighth.

Napoleon Solo

The race shape told the story. Napoleon Solo, with John Velazquez up, took them through modest fractions — twenty-three and sixty-six, forty-seven and ninety-five, one-twelve and sixty-two.

Sea Strike

Sea Strike hounded him. Leading Change sat the trip Franco wanted, forward and on the rail, waiting behind those two. Golden Tempo and Renegade were last, about sixteen lengths back after a half-mile.

Turning for home, Napoleon Solo shook off Sea Strike. Franco tipped Leading Change outside. The Gun Runner colt leveled out and dug in. He caught Napoleon Solo in the last jumps. Golden Tempo tried to come through inside, lost a bit of momentum in traffic, and could not get there.

Cox said they had always thought the colt was a big-time talent. Light on seasoning, he said, but they hoped talent would make up for it. It did.

Leading Change broke his maiden at Churchill in June, won the Indiana Derby five weeks later, then jumped into the Travers still unbeaten.

Franco was filling in for the injured Irad Ortiz Junior, who had ridden the first two starts. Franco already had a Travers on his résumé with Tiz the Law in twenty twenty. This was Cox’s second, after Essential Quality in twenty twenty-one.

Velazquez was honest about the second-place horse. Napoleon Solo ran a good race, he said. Maybe a mile and a quarter is a little far. When he asked him, he ran. Somebody else ran better.

Cherie DeVaux said the lack of pace was the problem for Golden Tempo. He was far back. He had too much to do. He came back fine, and that was what mattered.

The colt had missed some training with a mild illness after the Belmont and skipped the Jim Dandy. Jose Ortiz later said he probably should have gone outside instead of inside.

For a three-year-old division that looked settled after the Triple Crown, Saturday scrambled the picture. Golden Tempo is still the dual-classic winner.

Leading Change is now a Grade One winner with a perfect record and a ticket toward the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland on October thirty-first.

Wathnan Racing collected six hundred eighty-seven thousand five hundred for the win. A crowd of about forty-seven thousand six hundred watched it happen.

Experience was supposed to matter in the Travers. On Saturday, talent got there first.

The first colt to win the Travers still undefeated, in only his third start

He’s a bay colt, foaled April twelfth, twenty twenty-three, in Kentucky. WinStar bred him. Sire is Gun Runner, the twenty seventeen Horse of the Year. Dam is Starship Warpspeed, by Congrats.

That makes him a half-brother to Shedaresthedevil, who won the twenty twenty Kentucky Oaks and earned about two-point-seven million. Same mare also produced Star of Wonder and Mojovation.

Wathnan Racing bought him for eight hundred thousand as a yearling at Keeneland September in twenty twenty-four. Brad Cox trains him. The silks are peacock blue, gold sleeves, red cap.

He never ran at two. Bone bruising knocked him out of a planned Keeneland debut last October. First start was June seventh at Churchill — seven furlongs, won by six and a half lengths, time one-twenty-one and change, Beyer ninety-two.

They named him a TDN Rising Star off that. Five weeks later, first two-turn race, Indiana Derby. Won by a neck. Beyer ninety-five, same number Golden Tempo ran in the Kentucky Derby.

Then the Travers

Third start of his life, first Grade One, first mile and a quarter. Still unbeaten. Three-for-three, about nine hundred thirty-four thousand earned. Cox says he takes work well and bounced out of Saturday fine.

Next race isn’t locked. Pennsylvania Derby is on some lists. Breeders’ Cup Classic is possible, but Cox has already said they don’t have to go this year — it could even be next year’s Classic.

Gun Runner’s sixteenth Grade One winner. And as of Saturday, the first colt to win the Travers still undefeated, in only his third start.