SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – When jockey Junior Alvarado went to see Jimmy Jerkens Saturday morning to talk strategy for the Grade 1, $750,000 Woodward Stakes, he said there were no explicit instructions given about how to ride the horse. Without Jerkens saying anything specific, however, Alvarado knew the trainer didn’t want the horse ridden the same way as he was in the Grade 1 Whitney four weeks earlier when Alvarado put Preservationist on the lead from the outside post only to finish fourth. “I told Jimmy that I’m going to ride him with a target in front, don’t worry,” Alvarado said. “He said ‘Okay okay, I think he runs better that way too.’ ” Sitting third early, Preservationist ran way better than he did in the Whitney, splitting horses in deep stretch and outlasting a game Bal Harbour to the wire to win the Woodward by a half-length at Saratoga. It was another half-length back to Yoshida, last year’s Woodward winner and this year’s Woodward favorite. Tom’s d’Etat finished fourth, followed by Mongolian Groom, Wooderson, Mr. Buff, and Forewarned. Vino Rosso scratched and will now point to the Jockey Club Gold Cup on Sept. 28 at Belmont. The Woodward was the first Grade 1 victory for Preservationist, a 6-year-old son of Arch, whose career had been marked by injuries and infirmities that limited him to 10 starts. He won his first graded stakes two months ago in the Grade 2 Suburban at Belmont Park. “He’s made such huge steps in a short period of time, two of them have been very big ones to win the Grade 2 Suburban and then not the best of circumstances in the Whitney, and to come back in a month and put a performance and a gutsy fight the way he did is pretty impressive,” said Don Little, president of the Centennial Farms syndicate that owns Preservationist. Alvarado said he put Preservationist on the lead in the Whitney because he thought it was his best chance to beat McKinzie, who would ultimately win that race. “I thought if I sat second that day I was going to run for second, so I put the horse on the lead and tried to see if he would get brave on the lead,” Alvarado said. “I just changed the whole thing to try and win the race and it didn’t work out.” Jerkens was upset with those tactics. “I didn’t really expect that, we never talked about doing that,” Jerkens said. In the Woodward, the obvious target was Mr. Buff, a horse that Alvarado had previously ridden many times, who had the rail and basically was best on the front end. Mr. Buff, ridden by Jose Lezcano, did go to the front while Bal Harbour, under Javier Castellano and Mongolian Groom, under Luis Saez also were forwardly placed going into the first turn. Alvarado had Preservationist stationed along the rail and the horse tugged Alvarado up into a joint third, outside Mongolian Groom while Mr. Buff ran an opening quarter in 23.98 seconds, a half-mile in 47.97, and six furlongs in 1:11.49. Approaching the quarter pole, Preservationist was behind a wall of horses that included Mr. Buff, Bal Harbour, Mongolian Groom and a four-wide rallying Tom’s d’Etat. At three-sixteenths pole, Mr. Buff gave way and Bal Harbour was in front with Tom’s d’Etat seemingly ready to go on by and draw off. An opening presented itself inside the eighth pole, and though Preservationist took his time to get through, he ultimately did, besting Bal Harbour, who held off a late run from Yoshida. “As we turned for home we had a little room between horses,” Alvarado said. “They kind of made it a little tight for me there. At that point I thought I had a little more horse, I got through it, he kept on going at the end for me.” Asked if he felt vindication from the Whitney, Alvarado, said “Definitely.” Preservationist covered the 1 1/8 miles in 1:48.11 and returned $8.10 as the 3-1 third choice. He improved his record to 6-1-2 from 10 starts and increased his career earnings to $1,037,300. Joel Rosario, on Yoshida, said he was a little farther back than he planned to be early, but he still thought he was going to win. “I wish I could have gotten a little more into the race, but he came with a run,” Rosario said. “I thought we were going to get there, but they just kept on going.” Both Jerkens and Little said they would look at the Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park on Sept. 28. Neither was prepared to commit to or rule out a trip to the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita on Nov. 2. “That’s a long way away,” Little said.