The 84th running of the 1 1/8 mile Grade 1 $750,000 Whitney Invitational Handicap will occur Saturday at Saratoga Race Course in New York. This is a Breeders' Cup "Win & You're In" race which guarantees the winner a spot in this year's Breeders' Cup Classic, to be held at Churchill Downs November 5.
The Whitney Handicap has comprised the country's top racehorses and has produced several Breeders' Cup Classic winners, including 2010 Breeders' Cup Classic winner Blame. The Whitney was also the race which produced the historic upset of Triple Crown winner Secretariat by Onion, a horse that won his first and only stakes race by defeating a feverish Secretariat.
This year's running of the Whitney has a well-matched field of eleven older males. Interestingly, five of these horses met in the Grade 1 Stephen Foster Stakes at Churchill Downs this past June and four of the five have not raced since the Stephen Foster.
The Foster Five includes 4-1 Flat Out, 5-1 Giant Oak, 6-1 Apart, 6-1 Mission Impazible and 8-1 Duke of Mischief. The Stephen Foster was won by the now retired Pool Play, but the Foster Five finished second through sixth behind him by a combined six lengths. Mission Impazible was second, Apart third, Duke of Mischief fourth, Giant Oak fifth, and Flat Out sixth.