Travers Stakes at Saratoga : Easy Goer Is 1-5 Favorite to Defeat Five Other Colts

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. —  Easy Goer, winner of the Whitney Handicap at Saratoga and the Belmont Stakes in his last two starts, was made a 1-5 favorite Thursday when six 3-year-olds were entered in Saturday’s $1-million Travers Stakes.

If Easy Goer goes off at 1-5, he would pay $2.40 to win, which would be the lowest price since Damascus won the race and paid $2.40 in 1967. In 1953, Native Dancer won the Travers and paid $2.10, the legal minimum. The last odds-on choice in the Travers was Conquistador Cielo, who had won the Belmont and then finished third here at 2-5 in 1982.

Easy Goer will break from post No. 5, but with a small field going 1 1/4 miles, post positions should not be a factor. Here is the Travers lineup, starting at the rail:

Shy Tom, Jose Santos, 12-1; Clever Trevor, Don Pettinger, 5-1; Doc’s Leader, Bill Fox, 20-1; Le Voyageur, Randy Romero, 15-1; Easy Goer, Pat Day, 1-5, and Roi Danzig, Eddie Maple, 8-1. All will carry 126 pounds.

The forecast has changed for Saturday; there is a chance of showers. Easy Goer has won nine of 13 starts, and his two biggest defeats--at Churchill Downs in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and in the Kentucky Derby--were on muddy tracks. Trainer Shug McGaughey said, however, that Easy Goer would run, rain or shine.