SARATOGA SPRINGS – Just before 7 Saturday morning, the winner of the GI Kentucky Derby and GI Belmont Stakes, Golden Tempo (Curlin), looked calm and content as he strolled to the main track from trainer Cherie DeVaux's barn on the Oklahoma Training Track.He and jockey Jose Ortiz could have been out for a walk in the park. That's how chilled out the big horse looked. But he was here to work and work he did.Golden Tempo put in his final breeze for next weekend's GI, $1.25-million Travers Stakes and he did what he usually does.“He does what he has to do,” Ortiz said when it was over.The Phipps Stable and St. Elias Stable homebred Golden Tempo worked in company inside of stablemate Paige Turner (Army Mule), a 4-year-old filly with Ameth Gonzalez aboard.They completed four furlongs in :49.66 (91/139) and now just has to wait for the Midsummer Derby.“We just tried to do something easy, and he looked great doing it,” DeVaux said at the barn. “I am happy with where he is at.”Entries for the race will be taken on Sunday.“When he is on the track and doing his work, he is different,” DeVaux said, indicating the colt is all business when he knows it's time to focus. “When he is done, he switches right back off. He is quiet. He has always been that way.”Golden Tempo is so laid back, so quiet, that he could almost pass for a barn pet. But he also has a fierce competitor quality that he has shown in his will to win.It was on display when he won the Kentucky Derby by a neck and then again in the Belmont when he prevailed by a length and a half.“He is confident,” DeVaux said when asked if Golden Tempo acts like a horse that knows he is good. “I don't know if he translates racing into confidence, but he is a confident horse. He is quiet. I could probably have a 4-year-old walk him and he would be just fine. He is that laid back.”Brown's Travers Pair Put in Final WorksSince 2011, Chad Brown has trained 19 horses that were good enough to get to the G1 Travers Stakes. He hasn't gotten to the winner's circle yet, but he keeps trying. The Midsummer Derby is a race he really wants to win–the GI Kentucky Derby is likely the only other race that is close on his personal bucket list.Brown has an affinity for the Travers because he was born and raised in nearby Mechanicville and still has family and plenty of friends there.Sea Strike | Sarah Andrew “I have been very fortunate in my career to win many, many top races,” Brown said outside his barn at the Oklahoma Training Track. “I've been close, closer in the Derby than the Travers.”Brown has finished third three times in the Travers, the most recent with Sierra Leone (Gun Runner) in 2024.Next Saturday, Brown will have two more tries when he saddles the lightly raced Flanagan Stables' Sea Strike (Midshipman), the runaway 8 1/4-length winner of the Curlin Stakes on Aug. 2 and Emerging Market (Candy Ride {Arg}), owned by Klaravich Stables, Inc.Saturday, the two put their final works in for the Travers. Sea Strike went four furlongs on the main track in :48.70 (39/139) and Emerging Market went the same distance on the Oklahoma Training Track in :48.30 (12/66).Sea Strike will enter the Travers with the least amount of starts (three) and it will be his first graded stake try. He passed his first start around two turns when he blitzed the Curlin field going 1 1/8 miles, but the next start is way, way different.“He got a great trip (in the Curlin) and powered away from those horses, but this is another kettle of fish,” Brown said. “It's the top horses of the division and a pretty full field, so he is going to have to get out of the gate well and work himself out another good trip.”Emerging Market won the GII Louisiana Derby in his second start and then finished 10th in the Kentucky Derby and fifth in the GI Belmont Stakes. On July 25 at the Spa, he finished second in an allowance optional claimer against older horses.“One of these days, he will circle back to that Louisiana Derby win, which would put him right there,” Brown said.Flavien Prat has ridden Sea Strike in all three of his races and has been with Emerging Market in all five of his. For the Travers, Brown said Prat will stick with Sea Strike and Ricardo Santana, Jr. will ride Emerging Market.A Big Dreamer is Headed to the Big DanceOn Saturday morning, trainer Lindsay Schultz sat atop her pony outside her barn at the Oklahoma Training Track waiting for her GI Travers Stakes horse Baby Vino (Vino Rosso) to join her. She had a few minutes to talk and one of the questions was, how did she and Baby Vino end up here?Baby Vino | Walter WlodarczykBaby Vino got her and the ownership group–Cosmo Stables and Delta Squad Racing, LLC–a ticket to the biggest show of the Spa summer after he won the GI Haskell Stakes at Monmouth Park on July 18.“The original owner Marcus (Osborne of Cosmo Stable of Arkansas) is a big dreamer,” Schultz said. “He said, 'if he wins this race (Haskell), what's next?' I said there are two Grade Is left for 3-year-olds, and we will go to one of them.'”Baby Vino, sent off at 28-1–the second longest price in the Haskell–won it by a half-length over Napoleon Solo (Liam's Map). The two choices for the next start were the $1.25-million Travers or the GI, $1-million Pennsylvania Derby at Parx on Sept 18.The dreamer wanted to go for the bigger stage and here they are.“This is a pretty big deal,” said Schultz, who is based at Monmouth, but has a barn at the Spa and has started nine horses at the current meet and has one second. “(Baby Vino) has put us in the position to be here.”Baby Vino took a tour of the Saratoga paddock Saturday morning with Schultz on the pony. He then went out on the main track for a gallop. He will get his final Travers work either Sunday or Monday.Before shipping to Saratoga, he had three works at Monmouth Park.Schultz is based at Monmouth in the summer and Oaklawn Park in the winter. She got her first training win in 2022, and Baby Vino's Haskell was her first Grade I.Baby Vino has won his last three starts with the Haskell being his first attempt in a graded stake.In the Travers, he will be reunited with jockey Paco Lopez, who rode Baby Vino to a 10 3/4-length win in the Pegasus Stakes at Monmouth on June 13. Lopez rode Napoleon Solo in the Haskell, but Hall of Famer Johnny Velazquez will ride him in the Travers.The post Saratoga Notebook, presented by NYRA Bets: Relaxed Golden Tempo Ready to Roll in Travers appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.