Tiz The Law had five opponents in Sunday’s $1m Travers Stakes (10f) at Saratoga but none were able to stretch the three-year-old who strolled to a 5-1/2 length win.
Tiz The Law went through the line eased down over Caracao in 2:09.95, second only to Arrogate’s record of 1:59.36.
It is the fourth straight win for Tiz The Law and the third win at the highest level for the Barclay Tagg-trained son of Constitution.
“I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve always wanted to win the Travers,” Tagg told NYRA. “This has been in my head my whole life. And now it happened so it couldn’t be better. You always have some doubt because many different things can happen.
“That’s always in the back of you’re a mind, but I was very confident in the horse.”
Jockey Manny Franco said he was pleasantly surprised.
“I didn’t expect a race like that, but we’ll take it. He ran huge,” Franco said. “He was there the whole way for me and I was just waiting for the moment because it is a long way to go – a mile and a quarter – and he hasn’t gone that distance before, so I’m trying to save as much horse as I could before I made my move.
“He gave me chills. When I pressed the button, he just took off. He accelerated really hard. After that, I took a peek back and he was going away and I just saved horse.”
A $110,000 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga New York-bred yearling, Tiz The Law has now won six of his seven starts and earned $2,015,300.