Alan Truex: Justify shines through Preakness fog. But is he wearing down?
Wayne Lukas and Bob Baffert form the great rivalry of thoroughbred racing. It’s a friendly rivalry, with much common ground even though Baffert at 65 is 17 years younger than the man who’s known, reverently, as “Coach.” Lukas and Baffert both began their training careers with quarter-horses but have been competing with each other on the thoroughbred circuit for 23 years.
Entering Saturday’s Preakness Stakes – second jewel of the Triple Crown, Lukas had 14 victories in this series of elite 3-year-old horseflesh. Baffert was second all-time with 13.
Lukas sensed he was about to be caught when Baffert’s latest wonder boy, the supersized chestnut colt, Justify, walked into view at the gracelessly aging Pimlico Race Course near Baltimore.
Lukas was challenging him with a 15-1 longshot of mottled form named Bravazo. Talk about a misnomer: not a groundswell of bravos for him – or Lukas — when they were 10th in the Kentucky Jockey Club, 8th in the Louisiana Derby, 6th in the Kentucky Derby.
In a much better than usual NBC pregame show, Lukas glanced at the undefeated Justify and said he wasn’t expecting to beat him. He smiled. “At 82 I’m getting more realistic.” But he shrugged and pointed out: “The purse is good for second, third and fourth.”
The race over a miserably sloppy track was closer than Lukas expected. It was an unforgettable race to see, all the more so because nobody saw much through the dense fog.
All Justify and his jockey Mike Smith had to see was the horse in front of them, and there was none. Good Magic with Jose Ortiz was at their side, stride by stride, never leading by more than a neck in what was mostly a match race, as Ortiz said it would be.
After the race, Good Magic’s trainer Chad Brown lashed out with vast pettiness at Ortiz, the 2017 Eclipse Award winner as America’s finest jockey. Brown said he did not want Good Magic leading in the early stages, though it would seem the best shot at upsetting Justify was to make him work early – as he’s never had to do – and force him wide on the first turn.
Good Magic from the 5-hole sprang into the lead, and the 24-year-old Ortiz smoothly herded the 52-year-old Smith to the right, into a longer, more grueling trip than he wanted. It was a brisk but not frightful pace: 23.1/47.2.
Chad Brown doesn’t look big in scapegoating Ortiz. The reality is there was no foreseeable path to the winner’s circle and a blanket of alleged Black-eyed Susans for Good Magic. The Juvenile champion yielded to Justify at the mile marker and gently faded, as a 5-1 choice is supposed to do against a 2-5.
Much to the surprise of Lukas and the drenched crowd of 138,000, Bravazo charged to the finish line like his next bucket of oats depended on it. He was a half length short, while Tenfold, who failed to qualify for the 20-horse Derby, finished a quarter-length behind Tenfold and a head in front of Good Magic.
“Another 15 yards and we might have gotten it done,” said Lukas, admitting he should not be so elated about second place. But that’s how good Justify is.
Or was.
Justify suffered a foot inflammation during the Kentucky Derby that Baffert minimized in speaking to the media. Forget the fog, this puts something of a cloud over Belmont Park, where Justify will try to complete the sweep of the Triple Crown two weeks from Saturday.
This was the fifth time Baffert has won the Preakness after winning the Kentucky Derby. But it was closer than he wanted. Both the place and show horses were gaining on the winner of the 1 3/16-mile race.
So Justify does not head to New York for the 1 1/2-mile Belmont Stakes with the same sense of momentum as Baffert’s Triple Crown winner, American Pharoah in 2015. Pharoah won the Preakness by 7 lengths on a rainy, sloppy track eerily like Saturday’s.
Justify’s Beyer for the Preakness was 97, down from 103 in the Derby. It was the lowest speed figure of his 5-race career. He’s trending the wrong way.
If Justify becomes the second horse in 40 years to win racing’s Triple Crown, he will do it the hardest possible way. He plowed through mud in the Kentucky Derby and emerged with a sore hind foot. He suffered “run-down,” when the left hoof and adjoining pastern repeatedly plunged through slop and thudded against the base of the Churchill Downs track.
In the 143rd Preakness the winner wore an adhesive brace on his left heel. Baffert provided little detail, wanting the media buzz to be about what a great horse he has, not about how impaired that horse may be. So we have to rely on other sources to analyze Justify’s condition.
I asked an expert, my brother Dean Truex, a licensed thoroughbred trainer and former assistant to Billy Turner, who won the Triple Crown with Seattle Slew in 1977.
“You could see when he was warming up that he was putting the right foot down first and he wasn’t putting much weight on the left,” Dean said. “But he gutted it out.”
Baffert insisted Monday there are “no foot problems.” Even if a touch of run-down remains, there’s ample time to heal before the $1.5 million race.
But this colt could show the wear of a training schedule that was delayed and then compressed by a pulled muscle in the hindquarters. Justify is the first horse in 137 years to win the Kentucky Derby without having raced as a 2-year-old. The next race will be his sixth in 17 weeks.
The competition is formidable. This is a better-than-average crop of 3-year-old racehorses. Bravazo and Tenfold have almost as much stamina in their bloodlines as Justify, whose dam, Stage Magic, is a descendent of Seattle Slew and of In Reality, who grand-sired 2000 Belmont champion Commendable.
Vino Rosso, who won the Wood Memorial, bogged down in the Kentucky Derby mud and skipped the Preakness, has tactical speed and a pedigree that screams distance: son of Belmont runner-up Curlin and great-grandson, on the dam’s side, of Belmont winner Touch Gold.
Another possible spoiler is Hofburg, grandson of Touch Gold and great-grandson — on both sides — of Belmont champ A.P. Indy. In the third race of his life Hofburg ran second in the Grade 1 Florida Derby. He closed to 7th in the mud-storm at Churchill and then rested during the Preakness. His trainer, Bill Mott, doesn’t enter a stakes race unless his horse is ready to win.
Since Justify is bred to last, a Hall of Fame jockey faces more pressure than he’s ever felt. Baffert has tossed aside some of the sport’s finest riders – Kent Desormeaux, Rafael Bejarano, Gary Stevens – when they erred in major races. He ditched Victor Espinoza after he won the Triple Crown with American Pharoah. “His head was no longer in the game,” the trainer complained. “He got greedy.”
Mike Smith rode for Baffert and, according to the jockey, “made a few mistakes at a young age. He put me on the bench. I said, ‘Put me on the bench and call me up when it’s time for me to play.’”
Baffert decided it was time 2 ½ years ago. Since then the Baffert/Smith combination has scored 40% winners in graded stakes. Big Money Mike is as reliable as jockeys can be. But the Triple Crown depends on Baffert coaxing one more heroic effort from an amazingly talented but possible tiring racehorse. This is asking for a bit much – not to keep raining on a parade.