The Travers Stakes is an icon of American racing because it has been around forever. Well, almost. The race was first run in 1864, and it has been renewed every year since, making the Travers Stakes the longest continuously run stakes in the history of American racing.

The first Travers was won by the fine colt Kentucky, owned by John Hunter and William Travers (that’s Travers pictured on the right), for whom the race was named. Travers was also president of the Saratoga Association, which ran the race meetings at the upstate New York spa during the boisterous mid- to late-19th century.

The press today might prime their slings and arrows if a track president raced the winner of its most prestigious event, but the previous era in racing was , if not kinder and gentler , at least less suspicious of a bit of good fortune in an endeavor where all the participants are fighting for the same end: the winner’s circle.

Nor did the result seem unwelcome considering that Travers was a well-regarded man of means with a sense of humor. Once, it is said, while passing an establishment of the snootier sort, a companion asked Travers whether the gentlemen on the veranda were habituees of the club. He assessed that not all of them were. Some, he said, were sons of habituees.

Thanks in part to the seasoned humor of this old-style racing man, we will be celebrating the 144th running of the Travers Stakes at Saratoga on Aug. 25, and Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense will be favored to add this historic race to his list of accomplishments. Despite his many successes, Street Sense will need his running shoes to match the performance of the Travers winner 40 years ago. No winner was more emphatic in his domination of the Travers than Damascus in 1967 (video below). Already the winner of the Preakness and Belmont Stakes when he entered the Travers, Damascus blew away his opposition , literally swamping them on a sloppy racetrack , by 22 lengths , and made himself the apparently invincible champion of his age. When he won impressively from older competition in the Woodward Stakes and Jockey Club Gold Cup in September and October, Damascus earned his selection as the Horse of the Year.

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Frank Mitchell lives on a farm where he writes and raises horses about 30 minutes from Keeneland. He’s written two books on horse-racing and writes a regular column on Thoroughbred bloodlines for Daily Racing Form that can be found at drf.com.