As we hit Travers Week, the 2020 Saratoga meeting already has presented 24 stakes races following Sunday’s renewal of the Birdstone. If you are handicapping Saturday’s Travers Stakes (and 4 stakes on the undercard), here are some things you might want to know.

Joel Rosario tops the jockey colony with 6 stakes wins at a 38% strike rate. Irad Ortiz Jr. is next-best with 4 (24%). Javier Castellano is next at 3 (23%). Christophe Clement tops the trainers with 6 scores in just 8 starters, followed by Mike Maker’s 3 wins (43%) and Chad Brown’s 3 wins (27%). Favorites are a steady 9-for-24 (38%). Note the average winning favorite is just 4-5 odds, hammered on the tote, with all favorites averaging just a 6-5 price. Favorites at even money or greater are only 4-for-15 (27%). Of the 24 stakes winners, 16 of them last raced at Belmont Park. Otherwise, only Churchill Downs (2 wins) has produced more than a single stakes winner at the meet.

Here are some additional Travers tidbits:

Bob Baffert (Uncle Chuck) has a 22: 10-3-3 record at Saratoga since 2016, including the August 1 Grade 1 Whitney victory by Improbable. That’s 45% wins, 59% in the exacta and an ROI of $1.90 for every $1 bet. The last summer in which Baffert hasn’t won a Saratoga stakes was 2015 when American Pharoah finished second in the Travers, his only appearance at the meet.

Uncle Mo, sire of Travers contenders Uncle Chuck and Caracaro, sports a strong 19: 6-2-1 record with his offspring over the distance of one mile and one-quarter on dirt. Those wins include 2016 Kentucky Derby champ Nyquist and the 5-time, Ohio-bred distance stakes star Mo Don’t Know.

Favorites are 15: 3-2-3 in Saratoga dirt races at the distance of one mile and one-quarter since 2013. Travers chalks are 7: 0-2-0 during that span, runner-up performances by American Pharoah (2015) and Tacitus (2019).

Of the 15 races winners on dirt at one mile and one-quarter since 2013 at Saratoga, 10 of them prepped most recently over one mile and one-eighth. Three stretched out from one mile or one mile and one-sixteenth; one returned from a distance of one mile and one-quarter.

Jockey Javier Castellano boasts a 12: 5-1-0 record on dirt at Saratoga over the one mile and one-quarter distance since 2013. Those scores include 3 Travers wins during that span paying $16, $31 and $44.