This year’s Travers Stakes has attracted a star-studded field of 10 3-year-olds, many of them multiple stakes winners, headlined by Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes winner Golden Tempo.

None of those 3-year-olds, accomplished as they are, has three Grade 1 wins to their credit. Missing from the Travers starting gate this weekend at Saratoga Race Course is a sophomore runner who can boast that achievement, one completed even though he hasn’t yet run a step in a race as a 3-year-old.

That’s Ted Noffey, perhaps the most impressive horse to emerge from last summer’s Saratoga meet. On Aug. 2, 2025, he got his first win in his first start, hitting the wire 1 ½ lengths in front in a maiden special weight. 

Any 2-year-old colt trained by Todd Pletcher that scores an eye-catching win at Saratoga is going to get attention. Ted Noffey is also by Into Mischief, the leading sire by earnings for the last seven years and the sire of three Kentucky Derby winners, including the 2025 Horse of the Year and Kentucky Derby and Travers winner Sovereignty. 

And, then, there’s that name, a spoonerism of the name of the man who is his owner’s general manager and chief operating officer. 

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