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Overshadowed by the fact the fifth race on Aug. 8 at Saratoga was run at the wrong distance was the performance in that race by Somelikeithotbrown, who won by eight lengths.

The maiden race was scheduled for 1 1/16 miles, but was run at 1 1/8 miles due to an incorrect placement of the starting gate.

Wednesday, Somelikeithotbrown will cut back in distance when he heads a field of eight 2-year-olds entered to run 1 1/16 miles on turf in the Grade 3, $150,000 With Anticipation Stakes at Saratoga. Last year, the With Anticipation was won by Catholic Boy, who returned to Saratoga to win last Saturday’s Grade 1 Travers Stakes on dirt.

The With Anticipation is named for the five-time Grade 1 winner and $2.6 million earner who was euthanized last month at the age of 23 due to complications from old age, according to his former trainer Jonathan Sheppard.

Somelikeithotbrown made a wide, sweeping move in his maiden victory, taking control before the top of the stretch and drawing clear in the lane while several of those behind him were eased, perhaps owing to the fact they weren’t ready to run 1 1/8 miles.

Somelikeithotbrown was making his second start, after finishing seventh in a July 23 maiden race that had been scheduled for turf, but was run on the dirt. He finished seventh that day.

“He’s a colt we’ve always been high on. It rained off the first time, but we were going to give him a race,” trainer Mike Maker said. “He’s a big, heavy horse who had a lot of works but needed the benefit of a race. I think he’s got a big shot.”

Maker also entered Henley’s Joy, but was not sure whether he would run here or wait for a race at Kentucky Downs.

Though Jose Ortiz rode Somelikeithotbrown in his first two starts, he is riding Joyful Heart in the With Anticipation. Irad Ortiz Jr. will ride Somelikeithotbrown.

Joyful Heart, a son of Kitten’s Joy, sprinted on turf in his first two starts, finishing second June 17 and winning by 2 1/4 lengths on July 8. Joyful Heart is out of the dam Blue Heart, who won multiple stakes on synthetic around two turns.

“Hopefully, if he’s able to dictate the terms, I can see him getting two turns,” trainer Brian Lynch said. “If something gets in a speed duel with him then it might be a head-banger.”

Trainer Todd Pletcher has won the With Anticipation five times. He sends out the maiden winner Seanow and the maiden Opry. A maiden has won five of the first 13 runnings of this race, including Azar for Pletcher in 2015.

Opry was entered for the turf on Aug. 11, but the race came off and he finished third, beaten a half-length, when the race was run at seven furlongs on the dirt.

“He ran a very respectable race,” Pletcher said. “Feel like he’s a little better on the grass. We won the race in the past with a maiden, felt like he’s of that caliber, so we thought we’d give it a try. He trains like he should improve going two turns.”

Trainer Phil Gleaves sends out the uncoupled entry of Yes and Yes and Swamprat. Gunslinger, a maiden making his first start in the United States completes the field on turf.

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The top three finishers from Saturday’s Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers Stakes are expected to go their separate ways for the immediate future, but if things go according to plan, all three could meet again in the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs on Nov. 3, their connections indicated Sunday.

Catholic Boy, who won the Travers by four lengths and earned a 104 Beyer Speed Figure, “came back really well,” according to trainer Jonathan Thomas.

Catholic Boy added the Travers to a résumé that includes the Grade 2 Remsen on dirt and wins on turf in the Grade 1 Belmont Derby and Grade 3 Pennine Ridge, both at Belmont Park, and the Grade 3 With Anticipation here as a 2-year-old. Overall, he is 6 for 9.

“Visually, I thought yesterday was his most impressive performance,” Thomas said.

Catholic Boy earned a career-best 104 Beyer Speed Figure for the performance.

As Catholic Boy is now a Grade 1 winner on both turf and dirt, Thomas said he could look to run Catholic Boy in the Grade 2, $500,000 Hill Prince for 3-year-olds going 1 1/8 miles on turf at Belmont as a prep for the Classic. The Hill Prince is Oct. 6, whereas the Grade 1, $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup at 1 1/4 miles on dirt is a week earlier on Sept. 29. In the Jockey Club Gold Cup, he likely would have to face Whitney and defending Gold Cup winner Diversify.

“If you employ the Hill Prince against your own age group, cutting back an eighth of a mile and getting back on what I would call just a little bit of a kinder surface, it seems to make sense right now,” Thomas said Sunday morning. “Running against Diversify at Belmont, as quick as he is and chasing him, I don’t know if that’s really something I feel great about right now.”

If Diversify for some reason did not run in the Gold Cup, “that would open it up a little bit,” Thomas said.

Thomas said Catholic Boy would remain in Saratoga for the immediate future before shipping to Belmont a week or so before his next race.

Mendelssohn, who settled for second after setting the pace in the Travers, was scheduled to leave Sunday night for Ireland, where he is based with trainer Aidan O’Brien. According to The Irish Field, a weekly equine publication based in Ireland, O’Brien said Mendelssohn would not run again until the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

T.J. Comerford, O’Brien’s assistant who traveled to Saratoga with the horse, said Mendelssohn came out of the Travers in good order.

“The race couldn’t have taken that whole amount out of him because he ate his dinner last night, he’s straight into his breakfast, he’s showing the signs that he’s in a good place,” Comerford said. “I think you’d have to be happy with him. Aidan thinks he can improve again, which he can.”

In the Travers, Mendelssohn showed the speed he displayed in winning the United Arab Emirates Derby by 18 1/2 lengths in March. Since then, he finished last in the Kentucky Derby over a sloppy track and was third in the Grade 3 Dwyer Stakes at Belmont on July 7 at a one-turn-mile trip that may have been too sharp for him.

“He ran so well, he could be coming back to his best,” Comerford said of the Travers. “You could see there was definitely a change in him from Belmont to here.”

Bravazo was a length behind Mendelssohn while finishing third in the Travers, the third time in his last four starts that he finished in the top three in a Grade 1 stakes for 3-year-olds. The runner-up to Justify in the Preakness and Good Magic in the Haskell, Bravazo will be pointed to the Grade 1, $1 million Pennsylvania Derby at Parx on Sept. 22, trainer D. Wayne Lukas said Sunday morning.

“He’s sharp this morning, pulled up great,” Lukas said.

Lukas lauded Bravazo’s performance in the Travers, noting, “Nobody was closing yesterday. He was the only one. It’s hard to beat them when they get the dream trip those two got.”

Trainer Chad Brown was licking his wounds from a disappointing Travers in which his top two betting choices, Good Magic, the 7-5 favorite, and Gronkowski, the 3-1 second choice, finished ninth and eighth.

Neither horse broke particularly well, meaning they were unable to obtain a decent early position on a track that was kind to forwardly placed runners.

“The track wasn’t conducive to horses that didn’t have good early position,” Brown said. “With that said, from the half-mile pole to the wire, these horses weren’t doing any running really, so I can’t blame it all on the track.”

Brown said he would need more time to evaluate the horses before deciding what might be next for them. He did mention Gronkowski as a possible for the Jockey Club Gold Cup given his solid second in the Belmont Stakes and his penchant for longer distances.

Trainer Mark Casse said the filly Wonder Gadot, who finished last, came out of the race without any issues and that he had no immediate plans for her next start.

“Yesterday was a rough day,” Casse said Sunday morning. “But we gave it a try.”

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The New York Racing Association didn’t need a Triple Crown winner to have record business on Travers Day.

Despite the fact Triple Crown winner Justify was already enjoying retirement, all-sources handle on Saturday’s 13-race card was $52,086,597, eclipsing the previous Travers Day record of $49,668,754, set in 2015 when Triple Crown winner American Pharoah was upset by Keen Ice. After a meet punctuated by rainy weather, Saturday’s 13-race card was run under pristine weather conditions with the main track fast and both turf courses firm.

Saturday’s figure was also 8.8 percent higher than last year’s figure of $47,870,983.

Ontrack handle Saturday was $11,466,264, just missing the ontrack record of $11,472,451 set in 2015, but the second-highest for a Travers Day card.

Attendance on Saturday was announced as 49,418, a 3.5 percent increase over last year’s figure of 47,725.

Catholic Boy, trained by Jonathan Thomas, won the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers Stakes by four lengths over Mendelssohn, giving jockey Javier Castellano his record sixth victory in this race.

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Wonder Gadot has been stealing a good chunk of the buzz for Saturday’s Travers Stakes at Saratoga, and rightfully so. Named for both a movie star and her most famous character, the Canadian champion has beaten colts in her last two starts. She is big and strong and has all the speed she needs to deal with the rude boys around her. And if she runs well this weekend, it will be no surprise to those who have followed her career for owner Gary Barber and trainer Mark Casse.

She is also the first filly to try the Travers in 39 years, an unusual number given that there has been a herd of females compete in races like the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes over the same stretch of time. The obvious reason is the proximity of the Alabama Stakes, a race of considerable prestige for 3-year-old fillies that has been run since 1872.

The last filly to run in the Travers was Davona Dale, a daughter of Best Turn bred and owned by Calumet Farm and trained by John Veitch. It figured, therefore, that Veitch should have been getting calls this week from writers looking for a Wonder Gadot angle.

“No, I haven’t,” Veitch replied. “And I’m glad, because it was a great mistake on my part to run her there. She simply wasn’t as good in August as she had been the earlier part of the year.”

The memory can be forgiven if Davona Dale’s performance in the 1979 Travers has become obscure. The day was under attack from a sudden summer storm that rendered the track an ocean of slop. General Assembly, a son of Secretariat trained by LeRoy Jolley, scooted along the top of the muck to win by 15 lengths. Trailing in a dismal parade behind the winner were the major stakes winners Smarten and Private Account, with Davona Dale a distant fourth, wrapped up by Jorge Velasquez to fight another day.

“Nobody was going to get to General Assembly that day,” Veitch said. “He was a superior horse on that type of going.”

To that point, Davona Dale had done very little wrong in a career of 13 starts. She won twice at 2, then after two forgivable losses in early 1979 she began a run of eight straight stakes wins at six different tracks. Those victories included the Fantasy, Kentucky Oaks, Black-Eyed Susan, Acorn, Mother Goose, and Coaching Club American Oaks.

“From a standpoint of absolute ability, Davona Dale was probably the best horse I ever trained,” Veitch said, at which point the heavens were shaken by the Disciples of Alydar, the trainer’s most famous horse.

“Of all the great horses Calumet Farm had over their glory years, only Citation won more consecutive stakes than Davona Dale,” Veitch went on. “She was just wonderful, very gentle to be around, almost pony-like. She was not an impressive-looking horse. She had an ordinary head. Bodywise, she was long and lean, and very tall.”

She was also related to Citation through her dam, Royal Entrance, who was a granddaughter of Hydroplane, the dam of Citation.

“She didn’t show that much as a 2-year-old, but as a 3-year-old she was magnificent,” Veitch saidd. “Her greatest asset was that whether it was three-quarters, a mile, or a mile and a half, she was effective.”

Let the record show that in a career of 11 wins from 18 starts, Davona Dale won stakes at 6, 7, 8, 8 1/2, 9, 10, and 12 furlongs.

“She was terribly sound physically,” Veitch added. “You could ask her to do anything in the morning and she’d do it willingly. She was more colt-like, really, in the sense that to be at the top of her game she demanded pretty intense training.”

After sweeping the Acorn, Mother Goose, and CCA Oaks at Belmont Park, Davona Dale got a six-week breather before running in the Alabama.

“She wasn’t as sharp coming out of the gate that day in the CCA Oaks,” Veitch recalled. “She was so consistent in everything she did, that told me she might have been wearing out a little bit.”

In the Alabama, run on Aug. 11, Davona Dale was upset by It’s in the Air, co-champion 2-year-old filly of 1978. Veitch took a look at his filly and pressed on to the Travers, run one week later.

“I made the tragic and logical error that a lot of horse trainers make when you think you have something so good, even when they’re only 90 percent they can still beat anything,” Veitch said. “That week I didn’t really do anything but gallop her. I probably blew her out a quarter-mile the morning before the race, when the track was good.”

Davona Dale followed the Travers with a respectable fourth against older competition in the Maskette, then went to the sidelines for 10 months as champion of her division. As a 4-year-old, she made only three starts, winning the Ballerina at Saratoga. In 1985 she entered the Hall of Fame, and was joined by her trainer in 2007.

“I probably asked her to do more in the latter part of her 3-year-old career than I should have, and that had an impact on her,” Veitch said. “I apologized to her, but I don’t know if she understood or not.”

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