SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – It would not be a shock if Karen and Sean Flanagan completed an oh-so-distinctive double at Saratoga Race Course Saturday that may never be equaled: winning the GI Travers where they were married.The Flanagans, both 60, own Sea Strike (Midshipman), who is making his graded stakes debut in the $1.25 million Travers, the oldest and highest-profile race at Saratoga. The winner of two of his three career starts this year for trainer Chad Brown, Sea Strike made it clear that he deserved a shot against the stars of the 3-year-old division with an 8 1/4-length victory in the listed Curlin Stakes on Aug. 2.In the 10-horse Travers he will be facing the Triple Crown series stars GI Kentucky Derby and GI Belmont Stakes winner Golden Tempo (Curlin) and GI Preakness winner Napoleon Solo (Liam's Map). Also in the mix of top contenders is Renegade (Into Mischief), who followed his second in the Derby and third in the Belmont with a solid win in the GII Jim Dandy. Despite his lack of big-race experience, Sea Strike is the 5-1 third choice on the morning line.Sea Strike is the Flanagans' first Travers runner and the race comes 35 years, one month and two days since they were married on July 27, 1991 in the Saratoga backyard. There was a deep connection to that location: Sean Flanagan grew up in Lowell, Mass and visited Saratoga with his family for the races every summer.Sean Flanagan | Sarah Andrew“When I was a little kid, we used to just drive up,” he said. “I've seen them all. The Affirmed-Alydar battles. I saw Secretariat lose to Onion. I saw Secretariat win the Hopeful in '72. I actually remember these things. Some of my earliest memories in life actually were here at Saratoga.”Not surprisingly, he thought a racetrack wedding about three months after their engagement made sense.“It was definitely Sean's idea. Saratoga, especially the racetrack, is a very, very special place for Sean's family,” Karen Flanagan said. “They've been coming, oh, for years and years. We met about three years before our wedding, I had been to the track before, so it wasn't the hard sell that you might think it was for me. Saratoga is just such a special, beautiful place, and it turned out to be the perfect destination wedding for both of our families.”However, she acknowledged that not everyone was on board when the track was proposed as the site for the wedding.“My family was incredulous at first,” Karen Flanagan said. “They had never been to Saratoga, and I think they had a much different image, probably from movies or what have you, of smoky, airless locations. But it wound up being a ton of fun and a really special event for everyone.”In 1991, the New York Racing Association started to expand the increasingly popular Saratoga meeting. The initial move added another six days to what had been, with a single exception, a 24-day season since racing resumed in 1946 after being closed during World War II. The Flanagan wedding was held at the Big Red Spring. Sean Flanagan said the ceremony took place around 9:30 a.m. The couple and their guests had to leave the grounds before it was opened to racing fans a little later that morning on that first Saturday of the meet.“I don't know what we would have done if it rained,” Karen Flanagan said. “We probably would have had the ceremony at like the Nathan's hot dog stand. But it was a beautiful day and a lot of fun.”Flanagans on their wedding day | courtesy of the Flanagan FamilyAll these years later, Sean Flanagan laughs as he tells a story about that day.“My father wasn't in any of the pictures,” he said. “When you were first married, people went through the wedding album, and they said, 'Geez, I noticed your dad isn't in any of the pictures. Is he still with us? Is he okay?' I said, 'No, no, no. He just went to the track. He had to go to make the double that day, so he wasn't in any of the photos.”The Flanagans launched their company, CyberGrants, in 1999. He described it as a software that was a service platform for Fortune 500 companies to manage all of their grantmaking workplace giving and volunteer efforts in the U.S. and overseas. They worked with about 60 percent of the Fortune 100 companies and nearly a half-million non-profits. It was a team effort by the couple based in northeastern Massachusetts.“I used to say he made the promises and I kept them,” she said with a chuckle, “because he's the consummate salesman and I did more of the backend programming, client management, that kind of stuff.”The Flanagans sold the company in 2015. Four years later, he was diagnosed with cancer in his abdomen and told he had two years to live. However, the tumor was successfully removed and his health was restored.At that point, the Flanagans moved away from owning horses in partnerships to forming their own stable, Flanagan Racing, which now has 16 runners. Their first trainer was John Kimmel who has remained a key bloodstock advisor. In 2024, Kimmel and his partner Nick Sallusto picked out the 2-year-old colt that was named Chancer McPatrick (McKinzie) at the OBS April sale. He broke his maiden at Saratoga and a few weeks later gave the Flanagans their first GI victory in the Hopeful. He then won the GI Champagne. Chancer McPatrick was tested on the Triple Crown trail in 2025, but was moved back into sprint and middle-distance races. After finishing third in the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile, he was retired to Spendthrift Farm, where he had a full book of mares to cover this year.On the recommendation of Kimmel and Sallusto, Flanagan Racing paid $650,000 for Sea Strike as a 2-year-old last year and sent him to Brown.Sea Strike works at the Spa | Sarah Andrew“Chad absolutely loved this horse from Day One,” Sean Flanagan said. “He was training really well, he would just be off a touch for like a day or two after each breeze. This went on for about three weeks and Chad called me up and said 'Listen, I hate to say this but I want to back off this horse for about a month and a half.' He said, 'I promise you, I will get this horse through this. Unfortunately, we're going to miss the Triple Crown.'”Flanagan said that Brown followed up with a comment that considerably softened the blow.“It was a little disappointing, but Chad said, 'You know what? Let's make this horse a star in the summertime.' And I said, 'Good enough for me because I'm a Saratoga guy.'”Sea Strike had a poor start in his debut on April 25 at Aqueduct but was talented enough to overtake and run past the maiden field. He wasn't so fortunate in an allowance at the Spa on June 6, did not like the kickback Brown said and ended up fifth. In the 1 1/8 miles Curlin, he was prominent from the start, stalked Chief Wallabee (Constitution) and ran away to an impressive victory that made him one of the favorites in the Travers.In separate conversations, the Flanagans used the word “surreal” to describe having a contender in the historic Travers, a few blocks from the home they own in Saratoga.“Just to even be in the conversation is kind of like an out-of-body experience, but I'm very thankful for it,” Sean Flanagan said. “I'm going to appreciate every moment. I'm not nervous at all about it because everything that this horse does is just gravy. I think the horse is peaking at the right time. Chad just loved his breezes.“We're in there with a shot. It's not like one of these horses where I begged the trainer to put him in the Travers just for the sake of having an entry in the Travers. I don't know what kind of odds we're going to get on the horse on Travers Day, but I think honestly we're in there with a real shot.”The post Sea Strike’s Owners Relish Special Saratoga-Travers Connection appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.