SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — They take their Midsummer Derby seriously here in this old horse town. So shortly after noon Sunday, when the track announcer Larry Collmus ebulliently said, “Yes, he’s coming — he’ll be here at the Spa,” racegoers knew exactly what he was talking about.

The Triple Crown champion American Pharoah would be coming for the 146th running of the Travers Stakes, set for Saturday.

Sustained applause and high-fives were exchanged along the apron of Saratoga Race Course and throughout its bucolic backyard. The announcement ended a rumor-filled week of expectation, in which supposed sure signs that Pharoah’s owner, Ahmed Zayat, intended to run him here (he booked a block of hotel rooms) and that Pharoah’s Hall of Fame trainer, Bob Baffert, agreed (he had a seat on a private jet) did battle with the natural pessimism of horseplayers.

Why would Baffert take his prized colt to a racetrack that he has shown little fondness for, that over its storied 150-plus years has earned the nickname the Graveyard of Champions? It was here, after all, that the Triple Crown winner Gallant Fox was beaten by 100-1 Jim Dandy in the 1930 Travers and that another Triple Crown champion, Secretariat, was defeated in the 1973 Whitney by a horse named Onion.