American Pharoah’s pep talk to Justify on Triple Crown bid
Dear Justify,
When I won the Triple Crown in 2015, I was the first horse to do it since Affirmed in 1978. On Saturday at Belmont Park, you can be the second in four years if you add the Belmont Stakes to your victories in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.
We have a lot in common, from our front-running racing style to our trainer, Bob Baffert. Bob took some time from working with you to visit me at the breeding farm last week. He asked if it was OK if another horse broke my record and I said I don’t have a problem with it.
Technically, you’re not breaking any record of mine. Not only did I win the Triple Crown, but I also was the champion 2-year-old in 2014 and completed what I like to call the Grand Slam by taking the Breeders’ Cup Classic in my final start.
You didn’t even race as a 2-year-old, which allowed you to become the first such horse to win the Kentucky Derby since Apollo in 1882. You have won all five starts, so you could match Seattle Slew as the only undefeated Triple
Crown winner.
Seattle Slew lost his next start in an ill-advised appearance in the Swaps Stakes at Hollywood Park just three weeks after the Belmont Stakes. But I digress.
You go into the Belmont Stakes off two tough races. You took the Derby by 2½ lengths after racing close to a blistering early pace, and you won the Preakness by just a half-length over Bravazo after dueling from the start with a talented horse in Good Magic.
I had a hard-fought win by a length in the Kentucky Derby but cruised by seven lengths in the Preakness and then by 5½
in the Belmont Stakes.
Your critics say that you are regressing, that your narrow win in the Preakness shows you are vulnerable in the Belmont Stakes.
I like what your jockey, Mike Smith, had to say about that.
“If I’d have kept my foot on the gas, he’d have won by a lot farther,” Smith said. “But I had Good Magic beat and I wasn’t expecting anyone to come flying the way Lukas’ horse (Bravazo) did. I peeked under my shoulder, didn’t see anybody and I wanted to get him home safe and sound and not get after him and make him do any more than he had to do there at the end.”
I know every horse is beatable, even you. Heck, I lost the Travers Stakes to Keen Ice, a horse I whomped by a combined 31 lengths in our other four meetings.
But I say you’re faster than any of your nine opponents Saturday, and if you break cleanly from the No. 1 post position you can take control of the race. If someone else wants to go, just be sure not to get stuck on the inside of a headand-head battle. Like me, you’re not a one-dimensional front-runner; you can stalk, too. So go out there and do your thing and join me as the only living Triple Crown winners. Sincerely, American Pharoah