Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Justify the horse to beat at Preakness
BALTIMORE » Opposing trainers at the Preakness always want to see the Kentucky Derby winner up-close and then set their sights on trying to beat that horse.
This year, they can see Justify. They just don’t know if they can beat him.
There’s such a sense of awe about Justify and an aura around the heavy favorite that it’s clear it’ll take something significant to beat him. Watching Justify hold off Good Magic in the Derby impressed trainer Chad Brown enough to calm his expectations.
“I was very impressed with (Justify) how well he ran from gate to finish,” Brown said. “I’m confident my horse will run well, but I’m also very aware what a tall order this is to try and turn the tables on a horse like him.”
Turning the tables on Justify and cutting short his Triple Crown bid won’t be easy. The consensus around Pimlico Race Course is if Justify simply runs his race, he’ll win the Preakness and head to the Belmont Stakes on June 9 with the chance to give trainer Bob Baffert another Triple Crown victory — his second in four years after American Pharoah captured it in 2015.
Justify will have to regress back to the pack for any of the other seven horses to finish first.
“If he runs his race, if he shows up — I think every trainer, that’s all we hope for,” Baffert said. “I feel good. Right now I feel confident that he’s going to show up.”
Only a handful of things could reasonably derail Justify, a 1-2 morning-line favorite who is 4-0 and has won his four starts by a combined 21½ lengths. He showed something more by running such an impressive race in the mud at Churchill Downs in the Derby on May 5. It has rained all week in Baltimore, and more on Saturday should make for another sloppy track.
The other concerns are if Justify’s bruised heel gets irritated from a couple of days Kentucky Derby winner Justify is washed outside a barn on Friday at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. working out in mud and how the surface might complicate the start.
Baffert has been harping all week on the break being the most important part of the race. Even if he’s not as worried as he was when the field was 20 horses in the Derby, it’s the thing he’s most nervous about.
“I want him to leave the gate well and after that, what happens, happens,” said Baffert, who’s 4-0 with Derby winners in the Preakness. “We have to worry about something. It’s not like I’m just sitting there like, ‘OK we’ve just got to get around there.’ We still have to get around there.”
A game second to Justify in the Derby, Chad Brown’s horse was the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile champion and has looked great in workouts since arriving at Pimlico. Good Magic is the 3-1 second choice because he has shown he can hang with Justify, and maybe this time he’ll have that one extra kick to get by him down the stretch. QUIP Intrigue, thy name is Quip, the Tampa Bay Derby winner who skipped the Run for the Roses to rest up for the Preakness. The best of the new horses finished second in the Arkansas Derby and is 12-1 for Rodolphe Brisset, who used to train Justify. “He’s a slight-made horse we felt like would do better with the five weeks,” said Elliott Walden of WinStar Farm, which co-owns Quip. “We feel like he could have run in the Kentucky Derby but we wanted to give him a chance to catch up to himself.” BRAVAZO One of D. Wayne Lukas’ two horses along with Sporting Chance, Bravazo is 12-1 after finishing sixth in the Derby. He’s next to Justify in the starting gates but figures to come off the pace late. “Somebody had to be,” Lukas said. “I’d just as soon be next to him. I don’t think he’ll be next to him very long.” LONE SAILOR Traffic trouble in the 20-horse Derby was more of a problem for Lone Sailor than the mud, and the No. 1 post position is another considerable challenge. If the Louisiana Derby runner-up can find some room between horses, the 15-1 shot is a threat as long as Justify doesn’t save something for the stretch with a slower run in the first half-mile or so.