Saratoga Springs, NY (My Sportsbook) - Belmont Stakes champ Summer Bird and Florida Derby winner Quality Road top a field of seven three-year-olds in Saturday's $1 million Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course. The 1 1/4 mile Mid-Summer Derby will be run for the 140th time.

The quality of the Travers' field was greatly reduced this week with the defection of Rachel Alexandra to next week's Woodward Stakes and the announcement that Mine That Bird is still recuperating from recent throat surgery and will be held out of the race.

Quality Road, owned by Edward Evans, has been made the 8-5 favorite off his record setting victory in the Amsterdam Stakes. The colt will be ridden by John Velazquez from post four.

Trained by Todd Pletcher, Quality Road won the Amsterdam in a Saratoga record of 1:13.74 for 6 1/2-furlongs. He won the Florida Derby in March, but missed the Triple Crown races with an injury. The colt has won four of five career starts, including the Fountain of Youth, for $722,830.

Summer Bird is the 3-1 second choice in the morning-line and will break from post six with Kent Desormeaux in the saddle. The chestnut colt is coming off a second-place finish to Rachel Alexandra in the Haskell Invitational earlier this month at Monmouth Park.

Trained by Tim Ice, Summer Bird was third to Papa Clem in the Arkansas Derby before finishing sixth in the Kentucky Derby. The colt has earned $973,040 for owners Drs. Jayaraman with two wins in six starts.

Rachel Alexandra's stablemate Kensei is the 7-2 third pick in the program for Stonestreet Stable and trainer Steve Asmussen. The colt will be ridden by Edgar Prado from the outside post.

Since returning to the races in April, Kensei was second in the Derby Trial, third in the Woody Stephens Stakes and has consecutive wins in the Dwyer and Jim Dandy Stakes.

Kensei has won four of seven career starts for $528,628.

Here is the complete field for the Travers in post position order: Hold Me Back, Julien Leparoux, 15-1; Charitable Man, Ramon Dominguez, 6-1; Warrior's Reward, Calvin Borel, 8-1; Quality Road, John Velazquez, 8-5; Our Edge, Alan Garcia, 15-1; Summer Bird, Kent Desormeaux, 3-1 and Kensei, Edgar Prado, 7-2.

All seven colts will carry 126 pounds

The 140th running of the Travers will be shown on ESPN with a scheduled post- time of 5:47 P.M. (et).