Truest ‘Test’ for Justify in Belmont

Justify had barely cooled down after winning the 143rd Preakness

Stakes before a cavalry charge began forming for horse racing’s

“Test of the Champion.”

Early checklists Sunday indicated up to 11 rivals in the 150th

Belmont Stakes June 9, a mile-and-a-half marathon on Long Island’s Belmont Park. The Belmont is the one race that a New Yorkbased trainer holds especially dear and that even sophisticated New Yorkers, who have seen everything, regard with interest. Especially when a Triple Crown hopeful, like Justify (who can become the 13th such sweeper), crosses the Hudson River.

Bravazo and Tenfold, completing an unlikely Preakness trifecta, are expected to follow Justify to New York, although Good Magic, runner-up in the Kentucky Derby and Justify’s peskiest rival in both legs, is expected to pass the race.

Second choice in the betting, if not the main threat on the track, could be Audible, trainer Todd Pletcher’s highest-placing finisher (third) of his four Derby starters May 5 at Churchill Downs. Audible had a rougher Derby trip than Justify or Good Magic but was gaining at the end. Once he becomes eligible, Pletcher is headed for racing’s Hall of Fame whether he improves his 2-for-52 Derby record or ever wins the Preakness, though three Belmont victories (most recently with Tapwrit last year) look especially good on his record.

That said, they still have Justify to beat, which none of the 40 horses sent against him in his brief career has been able to accomplish.

We’ll concede that Justify visually “regressed from the Kentucky Derby,” as NBC analyst Randy Moss observed after the Preakness. And that horses like Bravazo and Tenfold, with comparatively sketcher portfolios, should not be making late runs at a presumptive superstar.

In that regard, Justify cannot withstand close examination with American Pharoah, who won the 2015 Preakness by seven lengths under the same sloppy conditions that Justify faced and then completed the Triple Crown with fanfare.

American Pharoah, Affirmed, Seattle Slew and Secretariat — Triple Crown winners in reverse order since 1973 — won the spring classics on top of juvenile championships. What Justify, who joined trainer Bob Baffert’s stable in late January and debuted Feb. 18, is attempting is unprecedented.

Baffert, who like Jimmy Cannon wrote of Babe Ruth regarding baseball must know the cacophony of sound on Belmont Stakes Day better than any other human, lives for these moments. He said after Saturday’s thrilling finish at Pimlico that Justify’s victory “took more out of me, a lot more out of me” than from the horse. On what will be his fifth shot at the Triple Crown, Baffert said Sunday that “I think the Belmont will be easier on him, the way it’s set up.”

Good Magic, coming slightly off the pace when second in the Derby, went after Justify from the start on Saturday in what Baffert called “their own private match race.” Justify thus had to face the challenge for a third consecutive outing — first against Bolt d’Oro in the Santa Anita Derby — that Smarty Jones met once in his career and, which by one length to Birdstone in the 2004 Belmont, he failed.

The stretch run, which NBC cameras depicted brilliantly despite dense fog, proved deceptively close, Baffert maintained: “He had a five-eighths run, so that’s probably he didn’t have a lot of kick at the end. But (jockey Mike Smith) said he could have won by more. When he knew he had it he just coasted to the wire. When he was pulling up and the horses came to him, he takes off again.

“It was close, but for him, what he’s done — fifth race — it’s pretty incredible.”

With his 14th victory in the Triple Crown series, Baffert tied the record set in the 2013 Preakness by fellow Hall of Famer Wayne Lukas. Baffert has been least productive in the Belmont, winning with Point Given in 2001 and completing the 2015 triple with American Pharoah, He can expect best efforts June 9 from some other guys who know about winning the spring classics: Lukas (with Bravazo), Steve Asmussen (Tenfold), Pletcher (Aubible and Vino Rosso), Bill Mott (Hofburg) and Dale Romans (Free Drop Billy) among them.

Lukas, at 82, might have been speaking for his brethren when he said before the Preakness, “I respect Justify’s ability but I’m not conceding him the race.” That speaks also for the sport’s integrity.