Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Derby winner Justify set for a romp
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:
How will Justify cope with the twoweek turnaround from the Derby to the Preakness?
The compact schedule is one of many unfamiliar challenges the Triple Crown series presents, especially to modern racehorses accustomed to lighter schedules than their predecessors.
But here’s an important fact to keep in mind: All of Baffert’s previous four Derby winners went on to win the Preakness. The white-haired trainer makes no bones about working his horses hard. Some break down, but those that made it to the Derby in fine form have held up to the rigors of the subsequent races.
Justify is a unique case because he went from entering the gate for his maiden race at Santa Anita to dominating the Derby in a span of 77 days. We simply haven’t seen anything like that, so it’s hard to put limits on him or project where he goes from here.
Jockey Mike Smith said Justify finished the Derby with energy to spare, and he’s a massive colt with a hearty appetite — all signs that bode well for his endurance.
Can any other horse from the Derby upset Justify in a rematch?
The pickings were looking slim before trainer/owner Mick Ruis changed his mind and pointed Bolt d’Oro toward Baltimore. Justify sent his rivals to the four winds, some of them to await a rematch in the Belmont Stakes, others to regroup for races after the Triple Crown series.
The answer hinges largely on what trainer Chad Brown does with Derby 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.
Are any fresh horses poised to pull the upset?
Usually contenders that skip the Derby simply are not in the same class as the horse that won it. But then there are cases like last year, when Brown held Cloud Computing out of the Derby and brought him to Baltimore at the perfect time to pick off vulnerable Always Dreaming.
The best candidate to pull off such a gambit in 2018 is owned by the same farm, WinStar, that co-owns Justify. Quip qualified 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.
How will the Preakness hold up as an event?
Though there hasn’t been much recent news regarding the future of Pimlico Race Course or a potential push to move the Preakness to Laurel Park, we always take stock of that fragile situation in the third week of May.
It’s inevitable, given Maryland Jockey Club officials’ annual fear that the venerable facility will suffer a catastrophic failure in the run-up to the Preakness. Despite that uncertain backdrop, the event has reeled in record crowds in recent years, with 140,327 packing the grounds in 2017.
Is Justify worthy of the comparisons to American Pharoah?
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.