SARATOGA SPRINGS — As the roar of a sun-baked crowd grew louder and the finish line grew closer, the largest Travers field in nearly two decades had come down to a two-horse race.

Colonel John and Mambo in

Seattle, who took divergent routes to the Travers, had equally opposite trips in the race itself. Where one was boxed in and bounced around turning for home, the other had clear, albeit wide, sailing into the stretch.

It wasn’t until the last eighth of a mile that they hooked up, Colonel John on the inside trying to hold his ground, and Mambo in Seattle to his right, dancing to the lead.

“I felt pretty confident when the horse came up beside him and I could see Colonel John dig back in,” trainer Eoin Harty said, “then the wire looked like it was never coming up.

“It just got tighter and tighter. I was sweating it out with everybody else. I thought I got beat, for sure.”

He didn’t, at least not when it counted.

By the narrowest of noses, Col­onel John got his down at the exact instant when the shutter clicked on the finish line camera to win the 139th Travers, the centerpiece of the Saratoga Race Course summer.

In front by a head bob both immediately before and after the wire, Mambo in Seattle had to settle for second, 51⁄4 lengths ahead of 7-2

favorite Pyro. A neck back in fourth was Harlem Rocker, who was a neck better than Belmont Stakes winner Da’ Tara.

Macho Again, the Jim Dandy winner whose West Point Thoroughbreds ownership group includes Roger and Joyce Locks of Saratoga Springs, wound up eighth of 12, beaten eight lengths.

“You know within about a six-foot range kind of exactly where the wire is,” said jockey Garrett Gomez, who won his first Travers in his third try. “I knew it was going to be close. It was just a matter of what kind of bob each of us had.”

The margin of victory matched the smallest in Travers history done seven times before, but not since Coronado’s Quest nipped favorite Victory Gallop in 1998. It was the largest Travers field since Rhythm was the first of 13 in 1990.

“To win this race, the oldest stakes race in America, in Saratoga, I can’t even describe what it’s like,” Harty said. “It’s fantastic.”

Sent off as the 4-1 second choice by a crowd of 40,723, Colonel John ($10.40) ran 11⁄4 miles in 2:03.20, the slowest winning time in 10 years. It was his first victory outside of Cal­ifornia, where racing is conducted on synthetic surfaces.

Sixth in the Kentucky Derby, the first and only other time he had raced on conventional dirt, Col­onel John was looking at a similarly rotten trip that got him beat at Churchill Downs. He broke in the air, got stuck down inside along the backstretch, and nimbly avoided trouble when pace-setter Da’ Tara began tiring as they entered the stretch.

Gomez managed to steer Colonel John clear of a potentially dangerous spot for both he and jockey Edgar Prado, aboard Tale of Ekati, who was also tracking on the inside.

“It was almost a bit of a nightmare trip,” Gomez said. “He hopped leaving the gate, and then the horse on the lead floated out turning for home. I was actually going to go outside of him, but as he started floating out he went about a length or so off the fence, and I jumped back inside.

“Then he pulled his horse back down on top of me and Edgar. I had Edgar in a really tight spot, and I had to jump back out across heels. For a horse to do that after going a mile, to still be able to jump on his feet and start to quicken and start lengthening his stride, it proves he’s a good horse.”

Unlike Colonel John, late-developing Mambo in Seattle missed the Triple Crown races and their preps, but was rapidly on the improve. He had won three straight races, including the Henry Walton overnight stakes at Saratoga four weeks ago.

Jockey Robby Albarado had Mambo in Seattle running near the back of the pack in the early going, trailing by nearly 28 lengths after six furlongs. They began to roll up on the outside, circling the field six wide approaching the final turn.

“I don’t think there’s anything I would have done different, because they had a lot of trouble going on in the far turn and I avoided all of it,” Albarado said. “I didn’t even get bumped. There was a lot of bumping going on, a lot of traffic trouble, and I was the one who was untouched. It was that close where I thought I won.”

After battling head-and-head for the final furlong, Albarado stood in the iron, raised his right arm and shook his whip, believing he had won. Meanwhile, Gomez took a quick peek back to his left to find the wire.

“I really couldn’t tell if we had won the race,” trainer Neil Howard said. “I thought he went well. He had to go around horses, and he got beat by one of the Kentucky Derby favorites. I’m grateful to train a horse like him.”

It was the second straight agon­izingly close Travers loss for both Howard and Albarado, who nearly upset 2007 Derby winner Street Sense last summer with Grasshopper, falling a half-length short.

“The defeat was harder this year, I’ll tell you that,” Albarado said. “I never like to lose any race, much less a Grade I, the Travers and Saratoga, especially two years in a row.

“It’s bittersweet. You’re proud of the horse, the way he ran. He stepped up for us and ran a huge race, but at the same time, he got beat, and it’s hard to shine a light on that.”

Pyro, a multiple graded stakes winner who came flying late but ran out of room and ran second to Macho Again in the Jim Dandy, saved ground along the rail before encountering traffic at the head of the stretch. He was able to put in a belated run once jockey Shaun Bridgmohan found room.

“He ran a good race,” trainer Steve Asmussen said. “Shaun did a great job to get through as much traffic as he did from as far back as he came. He did a good job to earn third late.”

Macho Again was attempting to become the fourth straight Jim Dandy winner to repeat in the Travers. He was only three lengths from the lead when he clipped heels and stumbled at the top of the stretch, losing all chance.

“He came back all cut up,” trainer Dallas Stewart said.