Baffert has shot at a Triple double
Justify’s trainer won horse racing’s crown three years ago with American Pharoah
BALTIMORE — The day after the second leg of the Triple Crown had been won, trainer Bob Baffert held court with the media outside the Stakes Barn at Pimlico Race Course one last time.
Just before 7:30 a.m. Sunday, Baffert strode up to the stall housing his superstar horse named Justify. The colt, with the big white blaze down his face, was pawing at the ground under his hooves.
Justify did his work on Saturday when he won the 143rd running of the Preakness Stakes over a sloppy Pimlico track that was surrounded by a dense fog.
Now, Justify has the rare chance to claim one of the toughest prizes in all of sports. If he can win the Belmont Stakes on June 9 at Belmont Park, he would become just the 13th horse in the history of racing to have won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont in the same year. Baffert will be looking to do it for the second time in three years; in 2015, American Pharoah became the first horse in 37 years to do it.
Sunday morning, as the sun peeked out of the Baltimore sky for the first time since Tuesday, Baffert sounded very much like he expected this horse to finish the Triple Crown job in the 1½mile Belmont.
Justify’s half-length victory in the Preakness over 15-1 shot Bravazo might have raised some eyebrows, but Baffert and jockey Mike Smith both said that the margin of victory could have been more.
“This one will set him up for the Belmont,” Baffert said Sunday. “You can’t come and bring it every time. The Belmont will probably be easier on him.”
Baffert said he is not concerned that Justify’s racing career has spanned just the past 90 days. It has produced five wins, including the two biggest thus far on the racing calendar for threeyear-olds. And now he is going to ask him to run the farthest he has ever (or any of the other horses that are going to run in the Belmont) been asked to run.
Smith said that if Justify is able to get into a comfortable rhythm in the Belmont, he is going to be very hard to beat.
“He is going to have to run, but that is what you have to do to win a Triple Crown. They don’t give them to you.”
Justify was led out of the Stakes Barn just after 8:30 a.m. Sunday by Baffert to a horse van that was going to take him to the airport. From there, he flew to Louisville, Ky., where he will spend the next two weeks at Churchill Downs under the watch of Jimmy Barnes, Baffert’s assistant.
“He is just so talented,” Baffert said. “Something can go wrong and he’ll still win. He is a superior horse.”
Justify will ship to Belmont early during Belmont Stakes week, but Baffert was not sure when.
One thing is for sure: The colt will be the favourite to win at Belmont. He can expect a challenge from Bravazo and Tenfold, who finished behind Justify in the Preakness, Kentucky Derby runners Hofburg (seventh) and Vino Rosso (ninth), and Blended Citizen, who just won the Peter Pan at Belmont on May 12.