Todd Pletcher, winning trainer of Syndergaard (No. 5): "We were optimistic coming in. The horse trained very well and ran well in his debut. We felt like Bobby On Fleek was very impressive in his debut, so it was going to be an interesting matchup. He's just got so much early speed that I think he kind of forced everyone to chase him a little bit. Yeah, he came with the heater today."

"As fast as he's going he's doing it in a pretty relaxed fashion. Even though he was rolling along, he was doing it within himself and had his ears pricked and felt comfortable and we weren't going to take away what comes easy."

On possibly starting in the Grade 1 Champagne on October 8: "I think so. He's run well enough in both of his starts, it's worth the conversation. He ran well enough in his maiden that had this race not been here we might have considered a race like the Hopeful. But you feel like you want to take what's obvious in a situation like this; it's back in 18 days; it was a quick turnaround, but everything he did between the races indicated to us he was going to come back in good shape and thankfully he did."

John Velazquez, winning jockey aboard Syndergaard (No. 5): "We knew he was fast so the plan was to let him break and wherever he lands, we'd just go and try to finish. He has a bright future. He's a nice, big horse, so hopefully we can keep him going."

"He's real responsive with everything you do. He's fast so once he breaks, you don't want to fight him too much. It's fine if he goes fast, he does it easy."