National Treasure and Flavien Prat kicked into gear at the top of the stretch, rounding on a swift-but-slipping back Hoist The Gold, who had set the 2024 Pegasus field a brisk pace up the backstretch for the 2024 Pegasus field. With that timely burst it seemed as if National Treasure had the Pegasus locked up, but lancing out of the crowd just out of the turn was his challenger — and it wasn’t the touted Brad Cox-trained First Mission, whom the blistering pace took out. Rather, it was the doughty Senor Buscador, coming up hard on the outside, matching National Treasure stride-for-stride. The race was on. In the hard going down to the wire, National Treasure fended off Senor Buscador in a stalwart defensive effort that was eerily reminiscent of his 2023 Preakness win. Four-and-a-half lengths behind that battle, the 34-1 super-longshot Crupi crossed the line in show.
National Treasure’s effort, tactically laying just off the pace and getting to the front, delighted his trainer and the many connections in the sizeable consortium of his owners. In his laconic New Mexico cowboy way, trainer Bob Baffert summed it up for the press: “Good horses, they keep running.”
Down in the teeth of the pack, however, the 2024 Pegasus can be described as an upset, and one that much pleased the players who had exotics starring the 34-1 Crupi. Crupi outlasted, and flat-out beat, First Mission, Skippylongstocking, Grand Aspen, and the rest of the field, pretty much exactly as the Daily Racing Form’s David Aragona had written that he was capable of doing. Senor Buscador was not supposed to be up where he was, either, but he put on a bracing demonstration of heart.
For his part, having done the two big Grade 1s, National Treasure’s stallion value has only increased, but for the moment, he’s racing so well that it seems his connections will keep him on the track. If all goes well, he may get out to the Gulf for some of the big money later in the winter in Dubai and Saudi Arabia, and/or he could continue in the States. The future is open for him.