Victory in Travers for V. E. Day

There's something supernatural, sometimes, about Saratoga, something magical about it - in its century-old traditions and stories, in its racing, in its very structure.

You wait around long enough, you'll feel it - like you did a few weeks ago, when trainer Eric Guillot watched his horse collapse and die on the track - feeling the ultimate low of this game's catastrophic unintended consequence - only to then, three hours later, watch another from his barn run by that spot and win the Whitney.

And you felt it on Saturday, when Trainer Jimmy Jerkens, weeks after losing his mother, and a day after tearfully celebrating his legendary yet absent father, ran one-two in the Travers, with longshot colt V. E. Day scoring by a nose.

For over half a century, Allen Jerkens roamed New York backstretches as royalty, dominating racing over that time and earning the moniker "The Chief."  He was the state's leading trainer five times; he won the Eclipse Award twice; and in 1975, he became the youngest trainer to be elected into racing's Hall of Fame.

He was a Saratoga mainstay, a constant presence at every summer meet - except this one, when the health of both he and his now late wife kept him from making the journey north.

"Everybody misses him, not just me," the younger Jerkens said while addressing the media after his incredible Travers win-place. "I'm glad I'm stabled at [the Oklahoma training track], because everytime I go over to the main track I get a little weepy."

Though he could not make it, Saratoga honored The Chief on the eve of the Travers, inducting the great trainer, alongside fellow trainer D. Wayne Lukas and retiring track announcer Tom Durkin, into the Saratoga Hall of Fame in a Winner's Circle "Red Jacket" presentation.

"I got a little weepy watching that infield show" Jimmy said, who spoke on behalf of his father.  "And then I had to go up to the microphone about 30 seconds later and I couldn't barely talk."

Perhaps experiencing a feeling similar to the one he'd have the next day, when he was back in that Winner's Circle - celebrating, this time, his pair of horses.

Wicked Strong, who followed up a Jim Dandy win by seizing control of the Travers at the top of the stretch and running on for what looked to be a victory, and V. E. Day, who came closing furiously down the stretch.

"What a feeling," Jimmy said of his thoughts during the stretch run. "I know I'm going to win the Travers, I just don't know with who."

On the wire, it was the latter, V. E. Day, edging the former by a nose - a result few predicted.

Except, of course, The Chief.

"My father was always privy to a horse like him - a big strong colt that lookss like he wants to go all day. That's his kind of horse," Jimmy Said.  "[My Father] said yesterday 'you know, I think he'll come running, I really believe he'll come running.'"

And he did - getting on top of the first one-two Travers finish for a trainer since Nick Zito did it in 2004 with Birdstone and The Cliff's Edge.

"Who would think that?" Jerkens said of the result. "A lot of things gotta go right to ever win it...it's just been a dream meeting...it's just one of those unexplainable things."

Like Magic.