Alan Truex: Justify got a lucky break, and the rest will be history
Saturday’s Kentucky Derby was a potential disaster. Three inches of rain pounded Churchill Downs and all the beautiful hats and turned the racetrack to puddles and goo, officially sloppy. It was the rainiest Derby in its 144 years. It was ugly in some ways but at least it washed away the 136-year-old Curse of Apollo. And it opened the gateway to the equine pantheon for Justify, the towering son of the posthumously prolific Scat Daddy.
Justify became the first Derby winner since Apollo in 1882 who did not race as a 2-year-old. The curse was thought to be scientifically based. Who can doubt that experience is helpful to a horse trying to avoid collision while racing 19 other?
Now add the elements of weather, wind-powered rain slanting into horses’ eyes. And for the bettor, an X factor that further jeopardizes the investment.
Justify, favored 11/4, had won all his three previous races. One was on a muddy track, prompting his effusive trainer, Bob Baffert, to proclaim, as last month’s Santa Anita Derby approached: “I hope it rains.”
It didn’t, but Justify still won easily. His red-chestnut coat is all-weather. So Baffert had no need to pray for rain in the Kentucky Derby. Not that a horse trainer should ever want his pupils to endanger themselves on a slick surface where a slight misstep could fracture a bone.
Thoroughbreds are the most fragile of beasts – designed far more for speed than durability. No money can be made on slow healthy horses. Baffert this spring lost two of his Triple Crown contenders – McKinzie and Mourinho. The latter was euthanized after a training mishap.
If there’s one annoying aspect of Baffert, he of the great white mop and genial personality, it’s a cavalier attitude about the health of his adolescent colts.
He works them relentlessly to have them peak for the Kentucky Derby, which he now has won five times. But his casualty rate is higher than that of some of his Hall of Fame rivals such as Bill Mott, Wayne Lukas and Todd Pletcher, who are less hell-bent on winning the roses. There are other juicy stakes.
But there’s only one Kentucky Derby, and the line is narrow between a horse at its peak and one that’s been nudged drastically too far. Elliott Walden, one of Kentucky’s most successful trainers who is CEO of WinStar Farms, owner of Justify, felt compelled to caution: “Bob, don’t rush this horse.”
It had to be something of a rush to take him from unraced to Kentucky Derby winner’s circle in 10 weeks. But Baffert knew he had an unusually precocious animal. And no one can train one up to speed as quickly as Bob Baffert.
Even so, as Baffert stood in the crowd of 156,000 at Louisville with the race about to begin, he did not like what he could see and not see. “This track really had me worried,” he said after the race. He knew Justify could maneuver in rain and slop, but he had no idea what others might do. As Justify’s 52-year-old Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith observed: “The Kentucky Derby is one race that the best horse usually doesn’t win.”
With 20 horses in the field, bumps, bruises and worse are likely. Last year the race ended at the starting gate for one-fourth of the field. Irish War Cry charged out of the chutes veering left, creating a chain collision that immediately took out Tapwrit, then McCracken, then Classic Empire, and J Boys Echo.
Similar incident this time. Magnum Moon from post 16 angled sharply inside and caused a bump on No. 14 Mendelssohn that threw them both off stride.
So within two seconds of the start, the two main challengers to Justify were eliminated. They finished 19th and 20th, and thus the Curse of Apollo lived with Magnum Moon.
By contrast, Justify broke perfectly from the usually lucky 7 slot. “When he got away clean, I thought we had a chance,” Baffert said. What he meant was, “If he’d gotten out late or bumped somebody, it’s probably over.”
Justify, eager as always, took aim on the most suicidal of front runners, Promises Fulfilled. The fear from the Baffert camp was that an early duel could leave their horse empty at the end.
Despite the tempering effects of the downpour, Promises Fulfilled blazed the first quarter in 22.2 and the half-mile in 45.8 seconds – one of the fastest paces ever for this race. Smith was confident his horse could withstand the burnout, so he did not try to impede his effort.
Promises Fulfilled gave up at a mile, and no one else challenged Justify, who easily held off the 2-year-old champion, Good Magic, by 2 ½ lengths. Audible, the Florida Derby winner, was a nose behind to claim the show.
The $1.5 million Preakness Stakes, a week from Saturday in Baltimore (6:20 ET), should not be daunting for Justify, who could be a 1-3 favorite. He will face a field perhaps half the size of the one at Louisville and a distance that’s half a furlong shorter.
He will meet some “new shooters” – Tampa Bay Derby winner Quip among them. But apart from the occasional late-late bloomer, the Pimlico herd consists of colts who weren’t good enough to win or qualify for the Derby.
The threat of the new shooter is overrated. In the past 34 years, only four horses won the Preakness after not participating in the Kentucky Derby.
It’s the third jewel of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes in New York, that is known as the Test of Champions, and for good reason. It’s 1 ½ miles – a quarter-mile longer than the Kentucky Derby.
The Belmont attracts healthy contestants who may not be quick enough to win the Kentucky Derby or Preakness but have the stamina to outlast faster horses, especially those worn down by the Derby prep season.
Possible spoilers this year could be hard-closing My Boy Jack, who finished fifth in the Kentucky Derby, and seventh-place Hofburg. Both are bred for long routes and are skipping the Preakness to freshen up for the Belmont.
American Pharoah, another Baffert trainee, is the only Triple Crown winner in the past 40 years. Justify’s quest is hampered by his injury-delayed beginning. Baffert had to compress his training program, which could leave the colt exhausted at some point during the next several weeks. The Preakness will be his fifth race in five months. To race again three weeks after that is asking for a lot in the name of history and multimillions.
My feeling, as one who touted Justify at 5/2, is that he’s close to a lock to win the Preakness. On Sunday he had a mild rash on a hind foot, but that quickly cleared up. Would I bet him at 1 to 3? Perhaps, although that sort of return doesn’t excite me. From the information we have so far, I see him as even money in the Belmont. As massively impressive as he looks, as fast as he’s run, as much as he’s overcome, it’s hard to bet against Justify.