SARATOGA SPRINGS — Even though he was there in person and has watched the replay several times, trainer Mark Hennig still marvels at the effort Wesley put into his turf debut.

Making his sixth career start, the 3-year-old El Prado colt had to overcome an eventful trip, where he was steadied on the far turn and forced to weave through horses to find room on the rail.

From there, jockey Ramon Dom­inguez coaxed Wesley to the wire by a head over Holiday Trip in a four-way photo finish.

“It was a very impressive race,” Hennig said. “He came late and just got up, but he had all kinds of traffic problems. It’s a race worth watching.

“You’d never guess he’s going to win, and he’s easy to spot, because he’s a big, gray horse. When you’re watching it, you’ll think there’s no way this horse won. It’s a fun race to watch.”

Owned by Peter Willmott, a

61-year-old Glens Falls native who now calls Chicago home, Wesley returns to the grass in today’s Grade II $150,000 National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame stakes on the Mellon Turf Course.

Wesley is 2-for-6 in his career, both wins coming against older horses. He ran a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 94 last time out, a 11⁄16-mile entry-level allowance at Belmont Park.

“I think he really responded to his first start on the grass,” Hennig said. “He’s by El Prado, and we had run him on the dirt. He had always trained like he was going to be a nice horse, and that was his first time getting on the grass, which may be the surface he wants.”

Purchased for $450,000 as a yearling in Keeneland’s September 2006 sale, Wesley didn’t get to the races until last October, rallying for fourth behind Coal Play, who ran in Sunday’s $1 million Haskell Invit­ational at Monmouth Park.

Wesley stayed on the dirt for his next three starts, running second twice before breaking his maiden April 19 at Aqueduct, going nine furlongs in 1:513⁄5.

He cut back to 11⁄16 miles for the $100,000 Barbaro on the Preakness undercard May 17, where he was last of five, beaten 141⁄2 lengths by Roman Emperor. Da’ Tara, who upset the Belmont Stakees at 38-1 three weeks later, was second.

“We wanted him to be a nice dirt horse,” Hennig said. “He was training well, he broke his maiden on the dirt, and he ran well on the dirt, but we thought at some point we were going to need to try him on the grass.

“It kind of came up as a decent opportunity to try it. In the Barbaro, he didn’t handle that surface down there real well that day, and that kind of led us to think as well as he’s always trained, we better try him on the grass before we discourage him a little bit.”

Also entered is Adriano, winner of the Grade II Lane’s End in March who ran 19th of 20 in the Kentucky Derby for trainer Graham

Motion.

He has since been transferred to the barn of Bill Mott, a Hall of Famer since 1998 who has won this race five times, the last with After Market in 2006.

In his first start for Mott, Adriano made a three-wide bid for the lead but faded to fifth in the Grade III Colonial Turf Cup on a turf course listed as soft.

Three-for-nine lifetime, Adriano

is 2-for-5 with one second on grass.

“We ran into an unusually soft turf course last time,” Mott said. “We probably won’t ever hit that kind of course again. Who knows. I guess you shouldn’t say that. But we were under water, you know?”