Derby winner Justify set for a romp
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The Kentucky Derby lived up to our lofty expectations for drama, challenging a gifted field of 3-year-old thoroughbreds with a miserable rain that created the perfect, if muddy, platform for Justify to assert his brilliance.
The Bob Baffert-trained colt stomped all over the Curse of Apollo, the 136-year streak in which no horse had won the Derby without having raced as a 2-yearold. He also outclassed a crop of contenders that had been regarded as historically good entering the race. But was Justify too good? It’s a valid question given the thin field of contenders challenging him in Saturday’s Preakness. Can one of them shock the racing world? Is Justify vulnerable in some unforeseen way?
All of the questions revolve around the Derby champion as we look at five key storylines for the second leg of the Triple Crown: runner-up Good Magic. Brown, who won the 2017 Preakness with Cloud Computing, had not decided as of Thursday.
Good Magic won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile last fall and legitimately challenged Justify in the Derby. Brown came out of the race believing there was no way his horse could have caught the winner. But Good Magic is a worthy champion and could turn the tables if Justify is off his best form. fied for the Kentucky Derby after he won the Tampa Bay Derby and finished second in the Arkansas Derby. But trainer Rodolphe Brisset held him out and prepared for the Preakness instead.
Beyond his in-house competition, Justify will face a D. Wayne Lukas-trained horse in Sporting Chance and possibly Federico Tesio Stakes winner Diamond King. has reeled in record crowds in recent years, with 140,327 packing the grounds in 2017.
With an unremarkable field shaping up to challenge him, Baffert’s big chestnut appears set for a romp.
The trainer has already said Justify belongs in the same rarefied class as the 2015 Triple Crown winner, at least when it comes to talent.
We still don’t know how Justify might react if he doesn’t break cleanly and if Smith can’t steer him immediately to clear running space. But this small Preakness field might not be well-suited to ask those questions of the Derby champion.
He almost has to win the Preakness with room to spare, as American Pharoah did, to stay on track.